please know harold bloom
"i have only three criteria for what i go on reading and teaching: aesthetic splendor, intellectual power, wisdom." - from harold bloom's book "where shall wisdom be found?"
harold bloom, currently the sterling professor of the humanities at yale university, has taken upon himself a daunting task. it has been his quest to make sense of and canonize the thought that has shaped and influenced our western culture. bloom is considered by all to be the most important literary critic of our time, changing the very face of criticism, redirecting it's trace away from popular theories like those of new-historicists or post-modernist, to a lasting aesthetic criticism, that will not bend to fashionable trends. bloom's theories of literary criticism not only rival the scientific revolutions of einstein and hume, the philosophical contributions of kant and nietzsche, the technological advances of savery, ford, bill gates, and steve jobs, and the literary offerings of shakespeare and beckett, but also synthesize them in light of their inter-relation to one another.
bloom was born in the bronx in 1930 in a yiddish speaking household. while studying at cornell university, his mentor and professor m.h. abrams, the founder and general editor of the "norton anthology of english literature," described bloom as "a "fearsome" student, and "gifted beyond anybody I'd ever seen. he had that extraordinary ability to read a book almost as fast as you can turn the pages, not only to read it but to practically memorize it" (wikipedia). to whom much is given, much is required, and bloom acquiesced to the categorical imperative.
in 1992, bloom wrote "the american religion" which compared many of the protestant and post-protestant religions in the united states, and argued that they shared more in common with gnosticism than historical christianity. after that controversial splash, bloom wrote "the western cannon" an ambitious attempt to stamp authors, work, and thought as divinatory.
bloom's "western cannon" may have offended many due to it's hubristic nature, but it was welcomed by almost everyone familiar with the work and bloom's reputation as a definitive landmark and necessary tool for understanding the paradigm in which we live. obviously bloom paid considerable attention to shakespeare, (so much so that on my first reading i summed up his work with, "he basically says that all of western thought begins and ends with bill" - i am embarrassed by my assessment today). but he also deliberately accompanied the humanities through an aesthetic lens coherent with his literary theory.
bloom argued that samuel beckett was the most powerful living author of his time. curently, he reserves that distinction for jose saramago (beckett died in 1989). "in 2003 bloom said that "there are four living american novelists i know of who are still at work and who deserve our praise". claiming "they write the style of our age, each has composed canonical works," he identified them as thomas pynchon, philip roth, cormac mccarthy and don delillo. he named their strongest works as "gravity's rainbow" and "mason & dixon", "american pastoral" and "sabbath's theater", "blood meridian", and "underworld." he has also praised fantasy writer john crowley as these writers' equal and especially his novel "little, big" (wikipedia).
in what might be considered a defense of his western cannon, bloom released in 2000 "what to read and why." it has proven to be a very helpful tool in understanding and appreciating literature, philosophy, and thought, through our current cultural world view. bloom requires faith and trust, but it has been earned and legitimized. it would behoove us all to become familiar with harold bloom (instead of oprah).
an on-line list of bloom's cannon
get bloom books at powell's
harold bloom, currently the sterling professor of the humanities at yale university, has taken upon himself a daunting task. it has been his quest to make sense of and canonize the thought that has shaped and influenced our western culture. bloom is considered by all to be the most important literary critic of our time, changing the very face of criticism, redirecting it's trace away from popular theories like those of new-historicists or post-modernist, to a lasting aesthetic criticism, that will not bend to fashionable trends. bloom's theories of literary criticism not only rival the scientific revolutions of einstein and hume, the philosophical contributions of kant and nietzsche, the technological advances of savery, ford, bill gates, and steve jobs, and the literary offerings of shakespeare and beckett, but also synthesize them in light of their inter-relation to one another.
bloom was born in the bronx in 1930 in a yiddish speaking household. while studying at cornell university, his mentor and professor m.h. abrams, the founder and general editor of the "norton anthology of english literature," described bloom as "a "fearsome" student, and "gifted beyond anybody I'd ever seen. he had that extraordinary ability to read a book almost as fast as you can turn the pages, not only to read it but to practically memorize it" (wikipedia). to whom much is given, much is required, and bloom acquiesced to the categorical imperative.
in 1992, bloom wrote "the american religion" which compared many of the protestant and post-protestant religions in the united states, and argued that they shared more in common with gnosticism than historical christianity. after that controversial splash, bloom wrote "the western cannon" an ambitious attempt to stamp authors, work, and thought as divinatory.
bloom's "western cannon" may have offended many due to it's hubristic nature, but it was welcomed by almost everyone familiar with the work and bloom's reputation as a definitive landmark and necessary tool for understanding the paradigm in which we live. obviously bloom paid considerable attention to shakespeare, (so much so that on my first reading i summed up his work with, "he basically says that all of western thought begins and ends with bill" - i am embarrassed by my assessment today). but he also deliberately accompanied the humanities through an aesthetic lens coherent with his literary theory.
bloom argued that samuel beckett was the most powerful living author of his time. curently, he reserves that distinction for jose saramago (beckett died in 1989). "in 2003 bloom said that "there are four living american novelists i know of who are still at work and who deserve our praise". claiming "they write the style of our age, each has composed canonical works," he identified them as thomas pynchon, philip roth, cormac mccarthy and don delillo. he named their strongest works as "gravity's rainbow" and "mason & dixon", "american pastoral" and "sabbath's theater", "blood meridian", and "underworld." he has also praised fantasy writer john crowley as these writers' equal and especially his novel "little, big" (wikipedia).
in what might be considered a defense of his western cannon, bloom released in 2000 "what to read and why." it has proven to be a very helpful tool in understanding and appreciating literature, philosophy, and thought, through our current cultural world view. bloom requires faith and trust, but it has been earned and legitimized. it would behoove us all to become familiar with harold bloom (instead of oprah).
posted by wlr at 5:30 PM
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