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The Art of Reading Poetry: From Chaucer Through Frost
“The work of great poetry is to aid us to become free artists of ourselves.” –Harold Bloom In The Art of Reading Poetry , Harold Bloom gives us his critical reflections on more than a half century devoted to reading, teaching, and writing about great verse, the literary achievements he loves most, and conveys his passionate concern for how a poem should be interpreted and appreciated. By illuminating such subjects as poetic voice, metaphor and allusion, and the nature of poetic value itself, Bloom presents an invaluable learning tool as a key to artistic expression.
56 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2005
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About the author
Harold Bloom
1,717 books2,031 followersHarold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
June 27, 2021
“All great poetry asks us to be possessed by it.” Bloom’s exploration of the building blocks of understanding poetry was a much-needed discussion for me. For quite some time now, I have wanted to be more in tune with the poetry that I read, as opposed to merely allowing it to wash over me – I have wanted to be possessed by a poem. I now have some more pieces to aid me in continuing my journey.
Bloom can be a polarizing figure within literature – certainly I can understand those who are frustrated with his tendency to touch on a subject without exploring it in depth. I also agree with the fact that his essays at times come across as a poor imitation of a high schooler’s 12th grade literature project: evoking many ideas, tying very few, exploring almost none. At one point, he goes on a tangent about Keats, writing in what I can only describe as “masturbatory prose”. But then again, I do the exact same thing all the time, so in Bloom, I often find an oasis.
This piece really struck me as it showed me how I have often missed the true meaning of words used by poets – words like “ruin” and “assume” that don’t require us to use a dictionary, but which, at the time of composition, meant something completely different to the poets (Chaucer and Eliot were used as examples). For Bloom, the beauty in poetry can be seen in how it fuses thinking and remembering, continually analyzing new thoughts while bringing to mind past events and emotions. Poems are, he argues, made greater by the weight of their allusions to the past. In other words, they are constantly differentiating themselves by their voice and identity, while at the same time being wrapped in multiple webs of history, emotion, and spirit.
I also appreciated Bloom’s reassurance to the young poet (why is it always the young poets that need reassuring?) that there will continue to remain undiscovered isles in human consciousness that are ripe for exploration. He also promises the dilletante consumer of poems that time and experience will give one a keen eye for quality and meaning in poems. Finally, the subject of “inevitability”. If a poem is inevitable, you will know. If it lacks all predictive and cyclical, repetitive qualities, you will know. This is what makes a great poem, and these are the works that possess and warm you until your final moments.
Bloom can be a polarizing figure within literature – certainly I can understand those who are frustrated with his tendency to touch on a subject without exploring it in depth. I also agree with the fact that his essays at times come across as a poor imitation of a high schooler’s 12th grade literature project: evoking many ideas, tying very few, exploring almost none. At one point, he goes on a tangent about Keats, writing in what I can only describe as “masturbatory prose”. But then again, I do the exact same thing all the time, so in Bloom, I often find an oasis.
This piece really struck me as it showed me how I have often missed the true meaning of words used by poets – words like “ruin” and “assume” that don’t require us to use a dictionary, but which, at the time of composition, meant something completely different to the poets (Chaucer and Eliot were used as examples). For Bloom, the beauty in poetry can be seen in how it fuses thinking and remembering, continually analyzing new thoughts while bringing to mind past events and emotions. Poems are, he argues, made greater by the weight of their allusions to the past. In other words, they are constantly differentiating themselves by their voice and identity, while at the same time being wrapped in multiple webs of history, emotion, and spirit.
I also appreciated Bloom’s reassurance to the young poet (why is it always the young poets that need reassuring?) that there will continue to remain undiscovered isles in human consciousness that are ripe for exploration. He also promises the dilletante consumer of poems that time and experience will give one a keen eye for quality and meaning in poems. Finally, the subject of “inevitability”. If a poem is inevitable, you will know. If it lacks all predictive and cyclical, repetitive qualities, you will know. This is what makes a great poem, and these are the works that possess and warm you until your final moments.
October 3, 2015
This essay - originally published as the introduction to The Best Poems of the English Language - was republished as a stand-alone paperback in 2005. Harold Bloom, the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, has been publishing literary criticism for over 50 years and is perhaps best known for his writings on Shakespeare and The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages.
Highly intelligent and even more opinionated, Bloom isn't for everyone. However, even his critics have to concede that he is extraordinarily well read, and I largely enjoy his work even if I don't always agree with every single thing he has to say. Poetry is Bloom's favorite form of literary expression, so getting inside his head for 50 pages and listening to him lecture is an interesting (and entertaining exercise).
Bloom's writings range from the relatively basic (for newer readers) to the highly complex. This introductory essay leans toward the basic side, so for readers who know a lot about poetry, much of this will be a refresher course. Still, even veteran poetry students will likely find something of interest here, and I would definitely recommend it to less experienced readers looking to explore poetics in more depth. Personally, I felt like I learned from this book and gained a deeper understanding of the poetic art. 4 stars, recommended.
Highly intelligent and even more opinionated, Bloom isn't for everyone. However, even his critics have to concede that he is extraordinarily well read, and I largely enjoy his work even if I don't always agree with every single thing he has to say. Poetry is Bloom's favorite form of literary expression, so getting inside his head for 50 pages and listening to him lecture is an interesting (and entertaining exercise).
Bloom's writings range from the relatively basic (for newer readers) to the highly complex. This introductory essay leans toward the basic side, so for readers who know a lot about poetry, much of this will be a refresher course. Still, even veteran poetry students will likely find something of interest here, and I would definitely recommend it to less experienced readers looking to explore poetics in more depth. Personally, I felt like I learned from this book and gained a deeper understanding of the poetic art. 4 stars, recommended.
December 18, 2010
While Harold Bloom might be able to artfully expatiate upon the tragic flaws of various and sundry Shakespeare heroes, he commits one of his own here: he hasn’t the faintest idea of his audience. Too sophisticated for a tyro and a mere introduction for anyone that attended sophomore English, Bloom commits the ultimate act of literary hamartia – which, staying true to the Aristotelian spirit of tragedy, he doesn’t realize.
Bloom begins by noting that poetry is essentially figurative speech, going on to further note (smartly) that prosaic speech is figuration, too, but figuration whose immediacy as such as been lost. For a large portion of the volume, he reads several poems through the lens of Kenneth Burke’s understanding of the four figurative tropes: irony, synecdoche, metonymy, and metaphor. Do you already know what these words mean? Assuming that you do (I’m guessing that most people who don’t wouldn’t know who Harold Bloom is), the vast majority of this book will be nothing new.
Bloom does manage to make some interesting points about the roles of allusion and intertextuality in poetry, giving examples of how some poems consciously mimic others stylistically (the scorn he heaps upon the “self-pitying and metrically maladroit” Poe is hilarious). He ends the book with the consideration that poetry is basically an exercise in which we encounter, in the words of Owen Barfield, “in contact with a different kind of consciousness from our own,” which Bloom construes as a sort of cognitive “strangeness.” This definition, while perhaps already glaringly obvious to the serious reader of poetry, has always rung true with me.
The strangeness of this book, however, is of quite another sort. We are offered interpretation after interpretation, without being offered even the rudimentary mechanics of how to “read a poem” suggested in the title, if such a mechanics are even available. Maybe his emphasis was on the “art” instead of the “reading poetry.”
Bloom begins by noting that poetry is essentially figurative speech, going on to further note (smartly) that prosaic speech is figuration, too, but figuration whose immediacy as such as been lost. For a large portion of the volume, he reads several poems through the lens of Kenneth Burke’s understanding of the four figurative tropes: irony, synecdoche, metonymy, and metaphor. Do you already know what these words mean? Assuming that you do (I’m guessing that most people who don’t wouldn’t know who Harold Bloom is), the vast majority of this book will be nothing new.
Bloom does manage to make some interesting points about the roles of allusion and intertextuality in poetry, giving examples of how some poems consciously mimic others stylistically (the scorn he heaps upon the “self-pitying and metrically maladroit” Poe is hilarious). He ends the book with the consideration that poetry is basically an exercise in which we encounter, in the words of Owen Barfield, “in contact with a different kind of consciousness from our own,” which Bloom construes as a sort of cognitive “strangeness.” This definition, while perhaps already glaringly obvious to the serious reader of poetry, has always rung true with me.
The strangeness of this book, however, is of quite another sort. We are offered interpretation after interpretation, without being offered even the rudimentary mechanics of how to “read a poem” suggested in the title, if such a mechanics are even available. Maybe his emphasis was on the “art” instead of the “reading poetry.”
August 23, 2020
Bloom is a brilliant critic and usually a competent writer, but this short work is an example of neither one nor the other. It's completely disorganized, has trouble making points and is not particularly instructive about the art of reading poetry (perhaps a job best left to actual poets).
April 24, 2021
challenging in the best way. I will return to this often as I grow in the life-long journey of reading poetry.
April 20, 2013
A generous 3 stars, one star given for the final 2 page end chapter where Bloom tells us why reading poetry matters, which was a good two sides, also counting towards that one star, a nice recommended reading list of poems.
We're not given tips on the art of reading poetry or anything like it though, hence two stars became three.
The usual Bloomian heroes are at least mentioned (Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, Emmerson) and some are given quotation (Shakespeare, Hart-Crane, Whitman) - though mirabili dictu, only one mention of Falstaff! Nice sustained reading of a Hart Crane poem. Fun pronouncements on Eliot, nice quote from Tennyson, and a tracing of poetic theme (mortality) from Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth up to Stevens. The quoted sections run seven pages, their analysis just two. Also Bloom scorns Poe a little which is fine by me.
A pleasant diversion of a book: I am glad I only paid $4.95 for it.
We're not given tips on the art of reading poetry or anything like it though, hence two stars became three.
The usual Bloomian heroes are at least mentioned (Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, Emmerson) and some are given quotation (Shakespeare, Hart-Crane, Whitman) - though mirabili dictu, only one mention of Falstaff! Nice sustained reading of a Hart Crane poem. Fun pronouncements on Eliot, nice quote from Tennyson, and a tracing of poetic theme (mortality) from Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth up to Stevens. The quoted sections run seven pages, their analysis just two. Also Bloom scorns Poe a little which is fine by me.
A pleasant diversion of a book: I am glad I only paid $4.95 for it.
May 14, 2018
A brief, stand alone book that actually served as the introduction to a large anthology of poetry chosen by Bloom.
Bloom has his favorites among poets, some that I agree with and some that I don't. I never enjoyed Harte Crane, though Bloom is effusive in praise for him. On the other hand, I concur with most of what Bloom says about Wallace Stevens.
This isn't necessarily a bad book, though I think his book "How To Read And Why" is a better choice for understanding poetry (and fiction). What's nice about this book, though, is that it is a brief primer on how to figure out poems, especially the difficult ones (a Bloom specialty).
Bloom has his favorites among poets, some that I agree with and some that I don't. I never enjoyed Harte Crane, though Bloom is effusive in praise for him. On the other hand, I concur with most of what Bloom says about Wallace Stevens.
This isn't necessarily a bad book, though I think his book "How To Read And Why" is a better choice for understanding poetry (and fiction). What's nice about this book, though, is that it is a brief primer on how to figure out poems, especially the difficult ones (a Bloom specialty).
January 6, 2022
Typical of Bloom’s work. There’s some insight but it’s buried under lists of authors he adores and knocks against everyone he finds inferior. Poe gets bashed about quite a bit. His over reliance on inserting long stretches of poetry without actually doing a deep analysis still feels like he’s padding the book out rather than giving the reader any deep instruction on the actual art of reading poetry. As I said, typical of Bloom’s work. You either agree with him or you don’t.
August 23, 2013
Unbelievably transformative. Bloom's talk of great poetry being inevitable and his description of the expansion of consciousness through poetry is the most erudite, fulfilling, and awesome discussion of the genre I've ever read.
February 4, 2018
Bloom's essay attempts to weave the strands of high lyric poetry into one cloth, and, if you stick with the high style alone as typified by Shelley and Keats, he's probably successful. This essay reads like a companion or application of Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent."
Thematic summary:
"[In Alastor,] Shelley thus inaugurated what would become more an American than an English poetic motif, the fourfold figuration that fuses night, death, the mother, and the sea in a sequence of American poets from Walt Whitman through Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, and beyond."
"...the Hellenistic myth of Hermes Trismegistus, reputed author of the Poimandres, where Divine Man falls into the ocean that is the cosmos of love, sleep, and death..."
I'm not sure how much we can get behind all that, but it's interesting. It's also not my favorite kind of poetry. Oh well, Bloom also thinks he's the coolest thing since sliced bread, so we can shrug off any criticism he might offer.
Thematic summary:
"[In Alastor,] Shelley thus inaugurated what would become more an American than an English poetic motif, the fourfold figuration that fuses night, death, the mother, and the sea in a sequence of American poets from Walt Whitman through Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, and beyond."
"...the Hellenistic myth of Hermes Trismegistus, reputed author of the Poimandres, where Divine Man falls into the ocean that is the cosmos of love, sleep, and death..."
I'm not sure how much we can get behind all that, but it's interesting. It's also not my favorite kind of poetry. Oh well, Bloom also thinks he's the coolest thing since sliced bread, so we can shrug off any criticism he might offer.
February 11, 2024
ne, tohle mě jen přimělo cítit se hloupě, poslední odstavec fajn, ale jinak nic nechápu, nevím, jestli to je mnou nebo knihou, ale doporučit nemůžu
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February 11, 2024I read this only because of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT and it was interesting, but I don't think I really took something from it except that last paragraph
September 13, 2025
This is, apparently, the introduction to an anthology of poetry, republished as a (very short: 56 pages of actual text) standalone book.
Bloom begins by stating that poetry is essentially figurative language, and then suggests that it falls into four major rhetorical categories: irony, synecdoche, metaphor, and metonymy, with examples of each. Then he gets into the meat of his thesis: allusion. To read poetry, it seems, it is necessary to have read _other_ poetry, which in turn... Poetry, it seems, is a great self-referential dialogue. (My words, not Blooms!)
He decries Poe as a poetaster with maybe two good poems (I can come up with several more than that without straining, but I have a tolerance for, say, the singsonginess of "The Raven" and "The Bells" that Bloom clearly does not have). On the other hand, he praises to the stars the poetry of Whitman and Emerson. He also identifies something that rings true to me about Shakespeare: that he is the great poet of _thought_; his most intense passages often (I am almost tempted to say generally) consist of his characters thinking aloud, in aside or soliloquy.
Finally -- and this was the best part of the book for me -- he does a farily intense reading of the second poem in Hart Crane's "Voyages" sequence, unpacking what had for me been mostly puzzling if beautiful language, placing it in dialog with (among others) Eliot, Shelley, and, most directly, Whitman and Melville.
I'm definitely going to have to reread this one: there is a _lot_ packed into these 56 pages.
Bloom begins by stating that poetry is essentially figurative language, and then suggests that it falls into four major rhetorical categories: irony, synecdoche, metaphor, and metonymy, with examples of each. Then he gets into the meat of his thesis: allusion. To read poetry, it seems, it is necessary to have read _other_ poetry, which in turn... Poetry, it seems, is a great self-referential dialogue. (My words, not Blooms!)
He decries Poe as a poetaster with maybe two good poems (I can come up with several more than that without straining, but I have a tolerance for, say, the singsonginess of "The Raven" and "The Bells" that Bloom clearly does not have). On the other hand, he praises to the stars the poetry of Whitman and Emerson. He also identifies something that rings true to me about Shakespeare: that he is the great poet of _thought_; his most intense passages often (I am almost tempted to say generally) consist of his characters thinking aloud, in aside or soliloquy.
Finally -- and this was the best part of the book for me -- he does a farily intense reading of the second poem in Hart Crane's "Voyages" sequence, unpacking what had for me been mostly puzzling if beautiful language, placing it in dialog with (among others) Eliot, Shelley, and, most directly, Whitman and Melville.
I'm definitely going to have to reread this one: there is a _lot_ packed into these 56 pages.
December 24, 2016
This book is very deep, so reading 2 pages is about all I can do at one time. The problem is that I have forgotten so many poets names and works that it is hard to follow. Still, I am getting what I wanted to out of the book. I am at least seeing the issues and understanding the poems themselves better. You sure can tell he is a critic though. He makes sweeping interpretations without an ounce of humility...my way of the highway, but he does provide examples and supports his conclusions.
I finally finished the book and now feel like I am barely prepared for reading it again! I give it only 3 stars, but I fear that I am the dunce and the problem is in myself.
I finally finished the book and now feel like I am barely prepared for reading it again! I give it only 3 stars, but I fear that I am the dunce and the problem is in myself.
December 30, 2020
I don't know the genesis of this work, but I'd bet my teeth it is an essential transposition of an opening lecture he gave to a college poetry course (replete with recommended reading as an addendum here). Ironically, treats "the art of reading poetry" like its calculus, which sort of misses the forest for the trees. That's not to say I know better, as Bloom is a fantastic critic and purveyor of poetry, but this absolutely reads like an overly dogmatic, education-centric treatment of the subject and is fairly useless to anyone who regularly reads poetry.
April 6, 2013
كتاب صغير مركز لأهم ناقد أمريكى معاصر . ، يشرح فيه مهية الشعر ، ، ولغة الشعر مستعينا بنماذج من شعراء معروفين ، من المحدثين والقدماء . ويميز العوامل التى تجعل القصيدةمميزة ,ما يجعلها ضعيفة .
وتشمل نهاية الكتيب ما يوصى به "بلوم " من الشعر الذى تجب قراءته
وهذا يجعل الكتاب كالمقال ، فى نحو 50 صفحة من القطع الصغير ، فيمكن قرائته فى جلسة أو جلستين
وتشمل نهاية الكتيب ما يوصى به "بلوم " من الشعر الذى تجب قراءته
وهذا يجعل الكتاب كالمقال ، فى نحو 50 صفحة من القطع الصغير ، فيمكن قرائته فى جلسة أو جلستين
November 26, 2025
The supreme irony of Harold Bloom is that as well-versed in the canon as he is, he cannot write well or think clearly. He must think his uncompromising elitism a boon to students of poetry, when what it more often achieves is a perpetuation of the worst anti-poetic stereotypes and phobias. For example, none of his prose reaches even the musicality or clarity of even my previous sentence.
Ultimately, I'm not sure who this little book (originally a preface) is intended for. When you're smart but don't know how to popularize or refuse to popularize, you betray a profound lack of self-awareness. Bloom manages to speak both at a level of sophistication too advanced for the average non-poet, but also chock full of too many digressive pattern recognitions to be interesting to the rare person who actually reads poetry.
He begins by outlining some of the poetic tools that authors use to elevate language above mere prose, especially irony, metaphor, and equivocation, all of which are very important to understand. But I feel like this starts in totally the wrong place: poetry was first and foremost an oral tradition built upon the repetition of beautiful sounds for the goal of memory and transmission. Poetry in its original (and probably truest sense?) therefore focuses primarily on two things: beauty (originally auditory, but eventually also visual once it was written down) and praise or worship (originally of holy things and gods, but eventually lowered to lovers, and eventually buried so low that it now can speak of anything, especially the profane).
Without that brief historical survey, the importance of poetry is lost on us. The closest Bloom gets is that poetry helps you think; though this is deadly important, especially in a radically insensitive and unthinking age, but it's also an extremely secondary and derivative observation. More than an intellectual pursuit, poetry is a quest after the human, and ultimately transcending the human to something more: whether mankind more widely, love as eros, a theistic God, wisdom as contextualized truth, beauty as being well-proportioned/balanced, etc.
As I already complained about, Bloom takes too much space up finding tenuous "lineages" between "great" poets, but the mere fact that he argues the same thing forcefully and repeatedly doesn't prove the linkage. Certainly, there is something profound about the torch being passed, but it stops and starts, stutters, has huge disconnects, is re-invented elsewhere, and sometimes goes out entirely. His mythos that all these canonical authors borrow from each other is oversimplistic to an irresponsible degree.
When he's not wasting his time finding obscure phrases one poet possibly borrowed from another, he does make some very important points, especially his point about "inevitability"; I agree entirely that the best poetry and the worst poetry embody the two main senses of inevitable: the former that "it couldn't be any other way, it's so perfect it had to be that way", and the latter, that "it feels forced, tedious, they 'had' to do that because the rhyme or meter forced their (talentless) hand." The latter is by far the most common aspect, especially in older formal poetry, yet it of course still exists today (what with confessional oversharing poetry being the norm among us plebs, and faux-transgressive orthodox-heterodoxy being the norm among the elite/published.
Continuing briefly on "inevitability" (since the last two sections are just more of the Pattern Recognition timewasting), I think that Bloom rightfully calls out Poe as being an inferior poet. I remembered being shocked at how badly Poe's theories on composition grated against mine; I'm a hopelessly novice acolyte of the Muse, believing that the best art always comes from beyond yourself. Poe, however, went to the opposite extreme, claiming to use precise formulae to produce his writings. This to me is what almost guarantees the latter form of inevitability, whereas the former only comes from regular writing (of bad poems) in the forms you want to use, until finally a moment strikes and it pours out in the form you've been practicing. Too bad Bloom didn't practice, he only preached.
Ultimately, I'm not sure who this little book (originally a preface) is intended for. When you're smart but don't know how to popularize or refuse to popularize, you betray a profound lack of self-awareness. Bloom manages to speak both at a level of sophistication too advanced for the average non-poet, but also chock full of too many digressive pattern recognitions to be interesting to the rare person who actually reads poetry.
He begins by outlining some of the poetic tools that authors use to elevate language above mere prose, especially irony, metaphor, and equivocation, all of which are very important to understand. But I feel like this starts in totally the wrong place: poetry was first and foremost an oral tradition built upon the repetition of beautiful sounds for the goal of memory and transmission. Poetry in its original (and probably truest sense?) therefore focuses primarily on two things: beauty (originally auditory, but eventually also visual once it was written down) and praise or worship (originally of holy things and gods, but eventually lowered to lovers, and eventually buried so low that it now can speak of anything, especially the profane).
Without that brief historical survey, the importance of poetry is lost on us. The closest Bloom gets is that poetry helps you think; though this is deadly important, especially in a radically insensitive and unthinking age, but it's also an extremely secondary and derivative observation. More than an intellectual pursuit, poetry is a quest after the human, and ultimately transcending the human to something more: whether mankind more widely, love as eros, a theistic God, wisdom as contextualized truth, beauty as being well-proportioned/balanced, etc.
As I already complained about, Bloom takes too much space up finding tenuous "lineages" between "great" poets, but the mere fact that he argues the same thing forcefully and repeatedly doesn't prove the linkage. Certainly, there is something profound about the torch being passed, but it stops and starts, stutters, has huge disconnects, is re-invented elsewhere, and sometimes goes out entirely. His mythos that all these canonical authors borrow from each other is oversimplistic to an irresponsible degree.
When he's not wasting his time finding obscure phrases one poet possibly borrowed from another, he does make some very important points, especially his point about "inevitability"; I agree entirely that the best poetry and the worst poetry embody the two main senses of inevitable: the former that "it couldn't be any other way, it's so perfect it had to be that way", and the latter, that "it feels forced, tedious, they 'had' to do that because the rhyme or meter forced their (talentless) hand." The latter is by far the most common aspect, especially in older formal poetry, yet it of course still exists today (what with confessional oversharing poetry being the norm among us plebs, and faux-transgressive orthodox-heterodoxy being the norm among the elite/published.
Continuing briefly on "inevitability" (since the last two sections are just more of the Pattern Recognition timewasting), I think that Bloom rightfully calls out Poe as being an inferior poet. I remembered being shocked at how badly Poe's theories on composition grated against mine; I'm a hopelessly novice acolyte of the Muse, believing that the best art always comes from beyond yourself. Poe, however, went to the opposite extreme, claiming to use precise formulae to produce his writings. This to me is what almost guarantees the latter form of inevitability, whereas the former only comes from regular writing (of bad poems) in the forms you want to use, until finally a moment strikes and it pours out in the form you've been practicing. Too bad Bloom didn't practice, he only preached.
August 15, 2020
Bloom is clearly a brilliant man with a penetrating, insightful mind. Unfortunately, not all brilliant people make the effort to write well.
This text was very unstructured at every level. There was little overall organization to the book, and the passages themselves read almost like a mix between poetry and prose, which makes it all the more challenging for someone struggling to understand this very topic. I would have preferred clear, simple explanations, rather than a highfalutin display of the author's erudition.
Perhaps the blame rests partly on me and my ignorance. I bought this book because I've always been baffled by poetry and was hoping for an expert guide to the appreciation and interpretation of poems. The intended audience may be people who already have a solid background in the subject. If that is the case, it could be a more successful effort than I am able to judge.
Even so, I got this creeping feeling that this is a book with nothing for everyone. Firstly, wouldn't informed readers already be aware of much of what he discusses? Secondly, he introduces some interesting concepts that are only discussed at a superficial level. The ideas of inevitability and strangeness are intriguing, but he only expatiates on (or even defines) them in the vaguest possible way.
There are some gems here. His discussion of the editing process and allusion are illuminating. However, it was disappointing overall. I left feeling even more confused about interpretation of poetry than when I started, and there was absolutely no sense of passion, emotion, or joy.
This text was very unstructured at every level. There was little overall organization to the book, and the passages themselves read almost like a mix between poetry and prose, which makes it all the more challenging for someone struggling to understand this very topic. I would have preferred clear, simple explanations, rather than a highfalutin display of the author's erudition.
Perhaps the blame rests partly on me and my ignorance. I bought this book because I've always been baffled by poetry and was hoping for an expert guide to the appreciation and interpretation of poems. The intended audience may be people who already have a solid background in the subject. If that is the case, it could be a more successful effort than I am able to judge.
Even so, I got this creeping feeling that this is a book with nothing for everyone. Firstly, wouldn't informed readers already be aware of much of what he discusses? Secondly, he introduces some interesting concepts that are only discussed at a superficial level. The ideas of inevitability and strangeness are intriguing, but he only expatiates on (or even defines) them in the vaguest possible way.
There are some gems here. His discussion of the editing process and allusion are illuminating. However, it was disappointing overall. I left feeling even more confused about interpretation of poetry than when I started, and there was absolutely no sense of passion, emotion, or joy.
May 26, 2021
2.0
This is my first encounter with Bloom and I can tell he must have been a great teacher and professor at Yale. His vast knowledge and application of it are clear but the book lacked a structural definition that is necessary with such manuals. Its saving grace is that it's short and sweet without any fluff typical of such publications.
"WHAT MAKES one poem better than another?...extrapoetic considerations of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and assorted ideologies increasingly constitute the grounds for judgement in the educational institutions and the media..."
That little paragraph left a bitter aftertaste because I felt like he was insinuating that such 'considerations' were diluting the western canon and that it's a price to pay for inclusion. If anything, these additions enrich the canon and are well deserved and not just considerations. Bloom sounds like the kind of English professor who would make a cutting remark about a poetry reading poster he saw on the department's noticeboard because 'real poetry' is only what a bunch of dead souls wrote ages ago. To me, a verse from a random Lorde's song is as powerful as Keats, Shelley, Whitman and Pound's works combined (I honestly believe this to be true).
He seems to love Dickinson's poems as much as he detested Poe's and I found the recommended reading at the end really helpful in moving past the staples taught in college. Great job professor Bloom!
This is my first encounter with Bloom and I can tell he must have been a great teacher and professor at Yale. His vast knowledge and application of it are clear but the book lacked a structural definition that is necessary with such manuals. Its saving grace is that it's short and sweet without any fluff typical of such publications.
"WHAT MAKES one poem better than another?...extrapoetic considerations of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and assorted ideologies increasingly constitute the grounds for judgement in the educational institutions and the media..."
That little paragraph left a bitter aftertaste because I felt like he was insinuating that such 'considerations' were diluting the western canon and that it's a price to pay for inclusion. If anything, these additions enrich the canon and are well deserved and not just considerations. Bloom sounds like the kind of English professor who would make a cutting remark about a poetry reading poster he saw on the department's noticeboard because 'real poetry' is only what a bunch of dead souls wrote ages ago. To me, a verse from a random Lorde's song is as powerful as Keats, Shelley, Whitman and Pound's works combined (I honestly believe this to be true).
He seems to love Dickinson's poems as much as he detested Poe's and I found the recommended reading at the end really helpful in moving past the staples taught in college. Great job professor Bloom!
October 28, 2022
The first question to address is does he teach us that art of reading poetry at all in this little book?
Section 1 discusses four features of poetry: metaphor, synecdoche, irony and metonymy.
Section 2 looks at examples of the above.
Section 3 considers that poetry depends upon splendor of figurative language and the role of memory.
Section 4 tackles allusion. He gives quite a few examples of how poets have picked images from the past and reuse them, re-purposed them.
Section 5 continues the discussion of allusion.
Section 6 asks “what makes one poem better than another?“ This is perhaps the longest segment and ultimately he concludes that it has something to do with the quality of the inevitable, that the lines consist of unavoidable phrasing, unavoidable wording.
Section 7 takes a close and admiring look at Hart Crane.
Section 8 looks at the concept of strangeness.
The book ends with the recommended reading list. It is short and smart.
Has he answered his original question? Perhaps.
Section 1 discusses four features of poetry: metaphor, synecdoche, irony and metonymy.
Section 2 looks at examples of the above.
Section 3 considers that poetry depends upon splendor of figurative language and the role of memory.
Section 4 tackles allusion. He gives quite a few examples of how poets have picked images from the past and reuse them, re-purposed them.
Section 5 continues the discussion of allusion.
Section 6 asks “what makes one poem better than another?“ This is perhaps the longest segment and ultimately he concludes that it has something to do with the quality of the inevitable, that the lines consist of unavoidable phrasing, unavoidable wording.
Section 7 takes a close and admiring look at Hart Crane.
Section 8 looks at the concept of strangeness.
The book ends with the recommended reading list. It is short and smart.
Has he answered his original question? Perhaps.
September 30, 2019
I must confess that I barely understood this book. There are threads of thought, complex but also enlightening – measuring the greatness of poetry in understanding its allusiveness, the inevitability of its wording and then for the augmentation of consciousness. Somewhere in the book Crane refers to demanding a very high level of readers literacy and enormous intellectual ability – which made me smile, as explanations for why so much of this seemed hard to follow. This is an introduction to Bloom’s collection of the best poems in the English language, but honestly, it is no introduction at all. What it did do however, was convey why poetry is poetry and why it is worthwhile for me to try and engage with it.
March 10, 2018
Tantissimi spunti di lettura di poesie. Poche ma basilari direzioni da seguire nell'interpretare la lirica.
" [...] essa (la coscienza) è per la poesia ciò che il marmo è per la scultura: materiale da lavorare. Le parole sono rappresentazioni, metafore della coscienza del poeta che ci invitano a partecipare alla stranezza."
"La missione della grande poesia è dunque aiutarci a diventare le e ti artefici di noi stessi. [...] L'arte di leggere la poesia è un autentico esercizio di accrescimento della coscienza, forse il più autentico [...]".
L'arte di leggere la poesia
Harold Bloom
Traduzione: Roberta Zuppet
Editore: Rizzoli
Pag:110
Voto: 4/5
" [...] essa (la coscienza) è per la poesia ciò che il marmo è per la scultura: materiale da lavorare. Le parole sono rappresentazioni, metafore della coscienza del poeta che ci invitano a partecipare alla stranezza."
"La missione della grande poesia è dunque aiutarci a diventare le e ti artefici di noi stessi. [...] L'arte di leggere la poesia è un autentico esercizio di accrescimento della coscienza, forse il più autentico [...]".
L'arte di leggere la poesia
Harold Bloom
Traduzione: Roberta Zuppet
Editore: Rizzoli
Pag:110
Voto: 4/5
September 7, 2022
A bit rushed and a bit too pedantic in his explanations of honestly very basic and intuitive concepts (although I understand why he felt compelled to write this way).
The most important idea is that poetry is figurative as opposed to literal, and to read poetry well you need to have read a lot lf poetry. But if you've read a lot of poetry you already understand, at the very least unconsciously, what Bloom is talking about. So it just feels like the book is written for no one and Bloom just felt like fanboy-ing.
I do, however, thank him for introducing me to the poem Ulysses by Tennyson. And the last few pages of the essay are actually quite interesting.
The most important idea is that poetry is figurative as opposed to literal, and to read poetry well you need to have read a lot lf poetry. But if you've read a lot of poetry you already understand, at the very least unconsciously, what Bloom is talking about. So it just feels like the book is written for no one and Bloom just felt like fanboy-ing.
I do, however, thank him for introducing me to the poem Ulysses by Tennyson. And the last few pages of the essay are actually quite interesting.
January 16, 2018
yeah...this book fell short of my expectations. It’s a shame because the book is small and holds such an attractive title that I had to pick it up and just skimming it I thought it would be a great read. Nope.
The language is too wordy for me and for anyone who also fell for the book’s attractive packaging. My rating is really like a 1.5 but rounded up because I always find it neat when there is a recommended reading list.
Honestly, I’d like a book like this but about modern poetry - like poets/poems published after 2000. Add some POC as well! Please!
The language is too wordy for me and for anyone who also fell for the book’s attractive packaging. My rating is really like a 1.5 but rounded up because I always find it neat when there is a recommended reading list.
Honestly, I’d like a book like this but about modern poetry - like poets/poems published after 2000. Add some POC as well! Please!
July 15, 2020
I rated this with just two stars but that might be more of a rating of my reading experience than the quality of the book. I am new to poetry and I was hoping for something more accessible and explanatory. It proved instead to be a short but difficult read that left me no better off in my journey toward understanding the art of poetry.
Again, the fault may be mine. Perhaps I, being very new to poetry, am just not the intended audience for the book, I can understand that. I would caution anyone else just starting out against making the same assumptions.
Again, the fault may be mine. Perhaps I, being very new to poetry, am just not the intended audience for the book, I can understand that. I would caution anyone else just starting out against making the same assumptions.
December 3, 2024
This is a very short book that addresses some of the allusiveness of poets in their works. The shortness is one of the issues, as the very few examples Bloom uses do not give a lot of opportunity to get his points.
Bloom presents numerous short excerpts of poems, then briefly discusses differences in tone, and shows where poets are referencing their predecessors. At the tail end of the book, Bloom focuses on some of Hart Crane's poems. Crane is a difficult poet to appreciate (Bloom acknowledges this as well), and some of the points seem pretty strained.
Bloom presents numerous short excerpts of poems, then briefly discusses differences in tone, and shows where poets are referencing their predecessors. At the tail end of the book, Bloom focuses on some of Hart Crane's poems. Crane is a difficult poet to appreciate (Bloom acknowledges this as well), and some of the points seem pretty strained.
February 23, 2018
This one's short, 56 pages plus over 30 pages of recommended reading. He is of course an accomplished scholar I admire but our taste is quite different. If you particularly enjoy A. E. Housman, Hart Crane, Shakespeare, he's your man. I do share his passions for Wordsworth, Dickinson (the only woman he mentions), Tennyson but I would like to see a more diverse selection being discussed.
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February 23, 2023I like poetry - a lot. Because of the economy off the language with its simultaneous ability to call up huge swaths of remembered experience and to touch the emotions. This book is for people with much more of an academic pedigree than I aspire to. I just like what poetry does, not what it is.
June 8, 2023
Separate printing of the introduction to his poetry anthology. Worthwhile to read and he has good examples of talking about poetry, but overall it really lacks a cohesive arc that helps connect the thoughts. It reads like a collection of unrelated musings.
February 21, 2024
Interesting read but not what I expected. Dr. Bloom shares some great opinions on some great writers and ideas but this isn’t a boon to learn the process of reading or writing poetry. Definitely a quick read and the back of the book has a TON of recommendations for further reading.
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