Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom was born on the 11th of July 1930 in New York City. He grew up at 1410 Grand Concourse in the Bronx. His parents were Paula and William Bloom. The household spoke Yiddish as a first language. Bloom learned English only when he turned six years old. He attended the Bronx High School of Science despite poor grades there. Standardized test scores remained high for him. Cornell University awarded his bachelor degree in classics during 1951. M. H. Abrams taught Bloom while he studied at Cornell. Yale University granted his doctorate in 1955. A Fulbright Scholarship sent him to Pembroke College, Cambridge from 1954 through 1955. Bloom later clashed with faculty members like William K. Wimsatt at Yale. He dedicated his book The Anxiety of Influence to Wimsatt several years after their conflict.
Bloom began writing The Anxiety of Influence in 1967 following a personal crisis. He drew upon Walter Jackson Bate's The Burden of the Past for structure. Poets struggle against precursors who have already said everything they wish to say. Initial love for the precursor turns into revisionary strife quickly enough. Strong poets perform strong misreadings of earlier works. Weak poets merely repeat ideas without adding anything new. Bloom described this process through a sequence called revisionary ratios. New poets become inspired by reading previous poets but feel disappointment. They cannot be Adam early in the morning because too many Adams exist. Each poet names things that were already named before them. This psychological obstacle forces poets to believe earlier writers failed somewhere. Only then can they add something to the tradition. Bloom traced how poets broke free from precursors to achieve individual visions. His theory became central to literary criticism throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
The Western Canon appeared in 1994 as a survey of major European and American works since the 14th century. Bloom selected 26 works he considered sublime and representative. He aimed to reclaim literature from what he called the School of Resentment. These critics espoused social purposes rather than aesthetic pleasure. Reading someone of their own origins does not benefit the insulted or injured according to Bloom. Politics had no place in his view of literary criticism. A feminist or Marxist reading of Hamlet might reveal feminism or Marxism but nothing about Hamlet himself. Canonical strangeness served as a benchmark for literary merit. Bloom made the list off the top of his head at his editor's request. He did not stand by it later. The book included candidates for permanent status within the canon. Critics decried this approach as harking back to out-of-fashion character criticism. Bloom praised Bradley and others explicitly in the text. He pronounced modern academic foes to be but a parody of Shakespearean energies.
Bloom entered a phase of religious criticism beginning with Ruin the Sacred Truths in 1989. He identified himself as a Jewish Gnostic in a 2003 interview. Michael Pakenham asked him about this during an interview for The Baltimore Sun. Bloom stated he could not understand a God who would allow the Nazi death camps and schizophrenia. The Book of J appeared in 1990 with David Rosenberg translating biblical texts. They portrayed one ancient document as the work of a great literary artist. This writer had no intention of composing dogmatically religious work. Speculation drew much attention from readers. Bloom later said perhaps he should have identified J with Bathsheba. Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine arrived in 2004 discussing Yahweh and Jesus as literary characters. The American Religion surveyed Protestant faiths originating in the United States. Most had more in common with gnosticism than historical Christianity according to Bloom. Jehovah's Witnesses remained the exception as non-Gnostic. Mormon and Pentecostal strains were predicted to overtake mainstream divisions. Omens of Millennium identified these elements as part of an old gnostic tradition involving angelology.
William Shakespeare stood at the supreme center of Bloom's Western canon. The first edition of The Anxiety of Influence avoided Shakespeare almost completely. He considered the bard barely touched by psychological drama then. A second edition published in 1997 added a long preface about Ovid and Chaucer. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human appeared in 1998 analyzing all 38 plays. Twenty-four of them qualified as masterpieces according to Bloom. Bardolatry ought to be even more secular religion already is his declaration. Shakespeare invented humanity through prescribing overhearing ourselves which drives changes. Sir John Falstaff represented self-satisfaction while Prince Hamlet embodied self-loathing. Iago and Cleopatra joined those two as four inexhaustible characters for meditation. Characters from disparate plays interacted alongside each other throughout the book. Contemporary academics decried this method as harking back to Bradley's character criticism. Bloom pronounced his modern academic foes to be but a parody of Shakespearean energies. He called Shakespeare the only truly multicultural author despite repudiating social energies.
Bloom faced polarized responses even among established literary scholars. A 1994 New York Times article described many younger critics seeing him as an outdated oddity. Another 1998 article called him one of the most gifted contemporary critics. Kenan Malik argued in The Guardian that Bloom conflated judgment and understanding. James Wood wrote that Bloom was vatic, repetitious, imprecisely reverential though never without peculiar charm. Bloom responded by saying there is nothing to the man. He often found himself at the center of controversy after criticizing popular writers. Adrienne Rich and Maya Angelou drew sharp criticism from him. David Foster Wallace also became a target. The Paris Review published his critique calling populist poetry slam the death of art. Doris Lessing received the Nobel Prize while Bloom bemoaned pure political correctness. MormonVoices included Bloom on its Top Ten Anti-Mormon Statements list for 2011. He said Thomas S. Monson was indistinguishable from secular plutocratic oligarchs. Bloom maintained sympathy for Joseph Smith whom he called a religious genius. A 1990 GQ article accused him of affairs with female graduate students. He called it a disgusting piece of character assassination.
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Common questions
When was Harold Bloom born and where did he grow up?
Harold Bloom was born on the 11th of July 1930 in New York City. He grew up at 1410 Grand Concourse in the Bronx.
What is The Anxiety of Influence theory by Harold Bloom about?
The Anxiety of Influence theory describes how poets struggle against precursors who have already said everything they wish to say. Strong poets perform strong misreadings of earlier works to add something new to the tradition.
Which books did Harold Bloom write about religion and Judaism?
Bloom wrote Ruin the Sacred Truths in 1989, The Book of J in 1990, Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine in 2004, and The American Religion. Omens of Millennium identified elements as part of an old gnostic tradition involving angelology.
How many plays did Harold Bloom consider masterpieces in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human?
Twenty-four of the 38 plays qualified as masterpieces according to Harold Bloom. He analyzed all 38 plays in the book published in 1998.
Who criticized Harold Bloom and what were their arguments?
Critics like Kenan Malik argued that Bloom conflated judgment and understanding while James Wood called him vatic and repetitious. A 1994 New York Times article described younger critics seeing him as an outdated oddity.