Harold Bloom

Sponsorship the way you would do it

Harold Bloom (born July 11, 1930) is an American literary critic, best known as an apologist for establishing and maintaining a canon of Western literature, which amounted to resisting Marxist, New Historicist, Post-Colonial, Feminist and Multi-Cultural trends in academic literary criticism.

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Table of contents

1 Biography
2 Judgments concerning recent writers
3 The American Sublime
4 Books by Harold Bloom
5 Miscellaneous Books (Introductions, Afterwords, Forewords)
6 Articles by Harold Bloom
7 Books about Harold Bloom
8 Awards
9 External links

Biography

The son of William and Paula (Lev) Bloom, Harold Bloom was born in New York City and lived in the East Bronx at 1410 Grand Concourse until he entered Cornell University in 1947 on scholarship (he was one of 65 people in the Bronx that year to win a scholarship from the State Department of Education). He earned a B.A. in 1951, and then went to Yale University for graduate study. He received his Ph.D. in 1955 and has been a member of the Yale faculty since that time. In 1958 he married Jeanne Gould; they have two sons, Daniel Jacob and David Moses.

Bloom began his career by defending the reputations of the High Romantic poets of the early nineteenth century against neo-Christian critics influenced by such writers as T.S. Eliot.

After a personal crisis in the late sixties, Bloom became deeply interested in Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sigmund Freud, and the ancient mystic traditions of Gnosticism, Kabbalah and Hermetism. Influenced by his reading, he began a series of books that focussed on the way in which poets struggled to create their own individual poetic visions without being overcome by the influence of the previous poets who inspired them to write. Bloom continued to write about influence theory throughout the seventies and eighties, which has crept into everything he has written since.

Beginning with The Book of J in 1990, Bloom began a series of miscellaneous works that reached out to a more popular audience. The publicity surrounding The Western Canon turned him into something of a celebrity. His critical work is often associated with Camille Paglia's.

Judgments concerning recent writers

Bloom's association with the Western canon has provoked a substantial amount of interest in his opinion concerning the relative importance of contemporary writers.

In the late 1980s, Bloom told an interviewer: "Probably the most powerful living Western writer is Samuel Beckett. He’s certainly the most authentic." Beckett died in 1989, and Bloom has not suggested who occupies that position now.

Concerning British writers: "Geoffrey Hill is the strongest British poet now active," and "no other contemporary British novelist seems to me to be of Murdoch's(Iris Murdoch) eminence."

In his 2003 book, Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds, he named Portuguese writer Jose Saramago as "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today," and "one of the last titans of an expiring literary genre."

Of American novelists, he declared in 2003 "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.

In Kabbalah and Criticism (1975) he identified Robert Penn Warren, James Merrill, John Ashbery and Elizabeth Bishop as the most important living American poets. By the 1990s he regularly named A.R. Ammons along with Ashbery and Merrill, and he has lately come to identify Henri Cole as the crucial American poet of the generation following those three.

The American Sublime

Bloom's introduction to Modern Critical Interpretations: Thomas Pynchon (1987) features his canon of the "twentieth-century American Sublime," the greatest works of American art produced in the 20th century. Bloom singles out the following works for distinction:

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West
William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying
The end of the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup
"Nearly all" of Hart Crane
Wallace Stevens's Auroras of Autumn
Bud Powell's performance of "Un Poco Loco"
"I Remember You" and "Parker's Mood" as performed by Charlie Parker
"Byron the Light Bulb" from Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow

Books by Harold Bloom

The Future of the Imagination. Publisher and date unknown.

Shelley's Mythmaking. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959.
The Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic Poetry. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961. Rev. and enlarged ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971.
Blake's Apocalypse: A Study in Poetic Argument. Anchor Books: New York: Doubleday and Co., 1963.
Yeats. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
The Ringers in the Tower: Studies in Romantic Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.
Poetry and Repression: Revisionism from Blake to Stevens. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976.
Figures of Capable Imagination. New York: Seabury Press, 1976.
Wallace Stevens: The Poems of our Climate. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977.
Deconstruction and Criticism. New York: Seabury Press, 1980.
The Flight to Lucifer: Gnostic Fantasy. New York: Vintage Books, 1980.
The Breaking of the Vessels. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
The Book of J translated from the Hebrew by David Rosenberg; interpreted by Harold Bloom. New York : Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.
Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.
The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973; 2d ed., 1997.
A Map of Misreading. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
Kabbalah and Criticism. New York : Seabury Press, 1975.
Agon: Towards a Theory of Revisionism. New York : Oxford University Press, 1982.
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.
Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996.
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: 1999.
Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages. New York: 2001.
How to Read and Why. New York: 2001.
Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds. New York: 2003.
Hamlet: Poem Unlimited. New York: 2003.
The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Frost. New York: 2004.

Miscellaneous Books (Introductions, Afterwords, Forewords)

(Editor) English Romantic Poetry, An Anthology, Doubleday, 1961, two-volume revised edition, Anchor, 1963.

(Editor, with John Hollander) The Wind and the Rain, Doubleday, 1961.

''The Literary Criticism of John Ruskin, Edited and with Introduction by Harold Bloom, Anchor, 1965.
(Editor, with Frederick W. Hilles) From Sensibility to Romanticism: Essays Presented to Frederick A. Pottle, Oxford University Press, 1965.
(Editor) Percy Bysshe Shelley, Selected Poetry, New American Library (New York, NY), 1966.
(Editor) Walter Horatio Pater, Marius the Epicurean: His Sensations and Ideas, New American Library, 1970.
"The Internalization of Quest-Romance" and "The Unpastured Sea: An Introduction to Shelley," in Romanticism and Consciousness: Essays in Criticism, edited by Harold Bloom, Norton, 1970.
(Editor) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Selected Poetry, New American Library, 1972.
(Editor) The Romantic Tradition in American Literature, 33 volumes, Arno, 1972.
(Editor, with Lionel Trilling) Romantic Prose and Poetry, Oxford University Press, 1973.
(Editor, with Trilling) Victorian Prose and Poetry, Oxford University Press, 1973.
(Editor, with Frank Kermode, Hollander, and others) Oxford Anthology of English Literature, two volumes, Oxford University Press, 1973.
(Editor and Introduction) Selected Writings of Walter Pater, Columbia University Press, New York, 1974.
(Introduction) Somewhere Is Such a Kingdom: Poems 1952-1971, by Geoffrey Hill, 1975.
(Editor, with Adrienne Munich) Robert Browning: A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice-Hall, 1979.
(Editor, with David V. Erdman) The Complete Poetry and Prose by William Blake, Bantam Doubleday Dell, November 1981.
(Introduction) On the Bible: Eighteen Studies by Martin Buber, New York: Schocken, 1982.
(Foreword) Elizabeth Bishop and her art, Edited by Lloyd Schwartz and Sybil P. Estess, University of Michigan Press, 1983.
(Introduction) Musical Variations on Jewish Thought by Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, Translated from the French by Judith L. Greenberg, New York, Geo. Braziller, 1984.
(Afterword) Selected poems of Jay Wright, Edited with an introduction by Robert B. Stepto, 1987.
(Foreword) Literary Outtakes, by Larry Dark, Ballantine, 1990.
(Editor, With Frank Kermode, Lionel Trilling, John Hollander) The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, November 1990.
(Edited, with Lionel Trilling) Victorian Prose and Poetry, Oxford University Press, November 1990.
(Foreword) Freud's Dream of Interpretation, by Ken Frieden, November 1990.
(Introduction) Unlocking the English Language, by Robert Burchfield, New York, Hill & Wang/FSG, 1991.
(Commentary) The Gospel of Thomas, The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, Translation, with introduction, critical edition of the Coptic text and notes by Marvin Meyer, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.
(Editor, With Paul Kane) Collected Poems and Translations of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Library of America, April 1992.
(Commentary) Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, and William Golding, University of Washington Press, March 1996.
(Afterword) ''A Dybbuk and Other Tales of the Supernatural, Translated by S. Ansky and Joachim Neugroschel, adapted by Tony Kushner, Consortium Book Sales, May 1997.
(Editor, With David Lehman) The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997, Scribner, 1998.
(Introduction, with Ralph Manheim) Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi by Henry Corbin, Princeton University Press, April 1998.
(Introduction) The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren, Edited by John Burt, Louisiana State University Press, October 1998.
(Foreword) Death in Venice, Tonio Kroger, and Other Writings by Thomas Mann, Edited by Frederick A. Lubich, Continuum Intl Publishing Group, July 1999.
(Introduction) The Body Electric: America's best Poetry from the American poetry Review, by Stephen Berg, 2000.
(Introduction) On the Bible: Eighteen Studies by Martin Buber, Edited by Nahum Norbert Glatzer, Syracuse University Press, February 2000.
(Afterword) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Foreword by Walter James Miller, Signet Classic paperback: August 2000.
(Foreword) Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays, With a new foreword by Harold Bloom, by Northrop Frye, August 2000.
(Introduction) Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, January 2001.
(Introduction) The Complete Poems of Hart Crane, The Centennial Edition, Edited by Marc Simon, With a new introduction by Harold Bloom, May 2001.
(Introduction) Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation by Moshe Idel, Yale University Press, 2002.
(Foreword) Long Day's Journey into Night, by Eugene O'Neill, February 2002.
(Foreword) CÃÂÃÂ´te Blanche by Martha Serpas, February 2002.
(Foreword) Atlantic Poets: Fernando Pessoa's turn in Anglo-American modernism, by Irene Ramalho Santos, University Press of New England, 2003.
(Editor) Walt Whitman, Selected Poems by Walt Whitman, February 2003.
(Foreword) Selected Poems by Conrad Aiken, Oxford University Press, April 2003.
(Foreword) The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, by Maria Rosa Menocal, April 2003.
(Introduction) Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Translated by Edith Grossman, Ecco Press, November 2003.
(Introduction) Peripheral Light, Selected and New Poems, by John Kinsella, November 2003.

Articles by Harold Bloom

On Extended Wings; Wallace Stevens' Longer Poems. By Helen Hennessy Vendler, (review), New York Times, October 5, 1969.

Poets' meeting in the heyday of their youth; A Single Summer With Lord Byron, New York Times, February 15, 1970.
An angel's spirit in a decaying (and active) body, New York Times, November 22, 1970.
The Use of Poetry, New York Times, November 12, 1975.
Northrop Frye exalting the designs of romance; The Secular Scripture, New York Times, April 18, 1976.
On Solitude in America, New York Times, August 4, 1977.
The Critic/Poet, New York Times, February 5, 1978.
A Fusion of Traditions; Rosenberg, New York Times, July 22, 1979.
Straight Forth Out of Self, New York Times, June 22, 1980.
The Heavy Burden of the Past; Poets, New York Times, January 4, 1981.
The Pictures of the Poet; The Painting and Drawings of William Blake, By Martin Butlin. Vol. I, Text. Vol. II, Plates, (Review) New York Times, January 3, 1982.
A Novelist's Bible; The Story of the Stories, The Chosen People and Its God. By Dan Jacobson, (Review) New York Times, October 17, 1982.
Isaac Bashevis Singer's Jeremiad; The Penitent, By Isaac Bashevis Singer, (Review) New York Times, September 25, 1983.
Domestic Derangements; A Late Divorce, By A.B. Yehoshua Translated by Hillel Halkin, (Review) New York Times, February 19, 1984.
War Within the Walls; In the Freud Archives, By Janet Malcolm, (Review) New York Times, May 27, 1984.
His Long Ordeal by Laughter; Zuckerman Bound, A Trilogy and Epilogue. By Philip Roth, (Review) New York Times, May 19, 1985.
A Comedy of Worldly Salvation; The Good Apprentice, By Iris Murdoch, (Review) New York Times, January 12, 1986.
Freud, the Greatest Modern Writer (Review) New York Times, March 23, 1986.
Passionate Beholder of America in Trouble; Look Homeward, A Life of Thomas Wolfe. By David Herbert Donald, (Review) New York Times, February 8, 1987.
The Book of the Father; The Messiah of Stockholm, By Cynthia Ozick, (Review) New York Times, March 22, 1987.
Still Haunted by Covenant; The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse, Edited by Irving Howe, Ruth R. Wisse and Khone Shmeruk; American Yiddish Poetry, A Bilingual Anthology. Edited by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav; Selected Poems of Yankev Glatshteyn, Edited and translated by Richard J. Fein, (Reviews) New York Times, January 31, 1988.
New Heyday of Gnostic Heresies, New York Times, April 26, 1992.
A Jew Among the Cossacks; The first English translation of Isaac Babel's journal about his service with the Russian cavalry. 1920 Diary, By Isaac Babel, (Review) New York Times, June 4, 1995.
Kaddish; By Leon Wieseltier, (Review) New York Times, October 4, 1998.
View; On First Looking Into Gates's Crichton, New York Times, June 4, 2000.
What Ho, Malvolio!'; The election, as Shakespeare might have seen it, New York Times, December 6, 2000.
Macbush, (play) Vanity Fair, April, 2004.

Books about Harold Bloom

Allen, Graham, Harold Bloom: Poetics of Conflict, Harvester Wheatsheaf (New York, NY), 1994.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 24, Gale (Detroit), 1983.

De Bolla, Peter, Harold Bloom: Toward Historical Rhetorics, Routledge (New York, NY), 1988.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 67: Modern American Critics since 1955, Gale, 1988.

Fite, David, Harold Bloom: The Rhetoric of Romantic Vision, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst), 1985.

Moynihan, Robert, A Recent Imagining: Interviews with Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, J. Hillis Miller, Paul De Man, Archon, 1986.

Saurberg, Lars Ole, Versions of the Past--Visions of the Future: The Canonical in the Criticism of T. S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis, Northrop Frye, and Harold Bloom, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Scherr, Barry J., D. H. Lawrence's Response to Plato: A Bloomian Interpretation, P. Lang (New York, NY), 1995.

Awards

Fullbright fellowship, 1955

John Addison Porter Prize, Yale University, 1956, for Shelley's Mythmaking

Guggenheim fellowship, 1962-63
Newton Arvin Award, 1967
Melville Cane Award, Poetry Society of America, 1971, for Yeats
National Book Awards juror, 1973
D.H.L., Boston College, 1973
D.H.L., Yeshiva University, 1975
Zabel Prize, American Institute of Arts and Letters, 1982
MacArthur Prize fellowship, 1985
Christian Guass Award, 1988, for Ruin the Sacred Truths
Boston Book Review Rea Nonfiction Prize, 1995, for The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
D.H.L., University of Bologna, 1997
D.H.L., St. Michael's College, 1998
National Book Award finalist, nonfiction, for Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, 1998
National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, criticism, for Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, 1998
New York Times Notable Book of the Year, for Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, 1998
One of Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, for Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, 1998
ALA/Booklist Editor's Choice, for Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, 1998
D.H.L., University of Rome, 1999
14th Catalonia International Prize, 2002

External links

Harold Bloom Discussion Group, Yahoo Groups.
Interview with Jennie Rothenberg, The Atlantic, July 16, 2003.
Interview with Christopher Lyden, Harvard Law Weblogs, September 3, 2003.
Dumbing down American readers, Harold Bloom, Boston Globe, September 24, 2003.
Interview at BarnesAndNoble.com.
Excerpts from various Bloom interviews, The Stanford Presidential Lecture Series.