for the love of literature
I enjoyed Bloom's book because it succeeded in one of its chief aims: to inspire the reader to open or go back to the books he describes. His enthusiasm beams from every paragraph. He obviously loves literature, and this passion conveyed itself clearly to me, triggering like feelings.
However, his book also irritated me. I can overlook the constant use of his favorite words: "declined," "agon," "proleptic," and "exuberant." But the constant rantings about the "School of Resentment," which would be feminists, Marxists, Foucauldians, and multiculturalists who reduce literature to ideology, got on my nerves and struck me as its own brand of resentment. I wish Bloom would have stuffed it all into an appendix or saved it for a book I would not have had to purchase.
Words, Words, Words
I knew, prior to reading this book, that I didn't like Harold Bloom.
I've encountered him over the years, primarily when he's condescended to comment on "popular literature," to inform us that we don't really know what we're about and are reading the wrong stuff.
I've always believed though that to truly have license to hate something, a fair hearing is required, and so I picked up The Western Canon. Maybe I would find my prejudice inaccurate (as has happened in the past)?
Not in this case, as it turns out.
There are things to be admired about Mr. Bloom. That he has built a career for himself; that he cares about promoting great works; that he sees through what he calls The School of Resentment, which seeks to redefine "good literature" according to the ethnicity/gender/social class of authors; that he has the integrity to fight the tide within his profession; that he is passionate.
This, however, is a poor book.
Other reviewers within these pages have already identified some of the reasons why it is poor -- Bloom's prose is nigh-unreadable, written (perhaps) for some incredibly rarefied audience, but not for any professor I've ever had, let alone a general reader. He uses effusive praise with large and impressive-sounding, but ultimately rather empty, words and phrases. He does all of this according to his own peculiar theories of "agon" and influence, which sometimes seem as cryptic and arcane as the criticism schools he dismisses.
His worship of Shakespeare, in particular, is just bizarre. I'm very fond of Shakespeare, but reading Bloom one gets the sense that, had Shakespeare not come about we wouldn't have a Canon to discuss at all. Indeed, Bloom seems to suggest that our very conscious lives -- yours and mine -- are somehow defined by Shakespeare's writings; that Shakespeare, somehow, "invented" us. I agree that Hamlet is a great character, but I believe that I could exist without him. Bloom apparently disagrees.
This book will not demonstrate to most or many why they truly ought to read the books Bloom mentions -- I find Bloom's aesthetic metric of influence to be cold, and very far removed from the joys I find in reading. However, I will take it from Bloom that there is *something* to be gained in the writers he cites, and will take value in the appendices he includes as a starting point for a deeper education.
Apart from the appendices, I believe that a prospective reader's time would be far better served reading Shakespeare, or Dante, or Milton, or any of the great writers that Bloom mentions, instead of reading Bloom himself. In short, The Western Canon does not make the western canon.
I find myself, at last, wondering what Shakespeare would have made of Bloom's Western Canon. I somehow suspect that he would decide that it really didn't have much to do with the plays he was writing, dismiss it, and get back to work.
One of our greatest living critics
Harold Bloom is one of the best living critics. There, I said it. He's controversial, he's sometimes infuriating, but by God, he's right, and he never ceases to illuminate.
I was first exposed to the idea of the Western Canon about four years ago, in my 11th grade English class, where we compared the ideas of Harold Bloom and Henry Louis Gate, Jr. on the (actually nonexistent) canon. I didn't make much of it then, as I wasn't quite the literature junkie I am now, but it gave me a taste of the academic battle that is raging right now.
Gates, whose criticism I have no read, but who seems an admirable man, is a proponent of a more inclusive canon, that gives weight to works based on their writers. Bloom is much more of a purist, and I agree with him far more, in that he demands works be included strictly on the basis of the work alone. The author is almost nonexistent in the question of inclusion; all that matters is the quality of the work. Ever the controversialist, Bloom points out that the current "canon" is being watered-down by what he terms the "School of Resentment"; namely, the multiculturalist, feminist, Marxist, deconstructionist, etc. literary theorists. He is sensationalist at times, declaring in his `Elegy for the Canon' that he doesn't believe literature will ever return to its previous, exalted state, but for the most part he hits the nail on the head.
As an English majour forced to take many classes expounding the "School of Resentment" theories, I admit I have a bias toward Bloom and probably see it as more of a crisis than most. However, there is a sense in which literature is in danger. The number of readers of great literature seems to be decreasing, and when compared with the number of TV viewers and partakers of other, cheaper forms of entertainment, reading is all but disappeared. The "School of Resentment" is yet another undermining factor to the already endangered art of reading great literature, seeking to supplant the Wordsworths and Miltons with sub-par writers, simply because these sub-par writers happen(ed) to belong to a particular group. This is flat-out wrong, and makes English departments nationwide a laughingstock, in many cases.
But enough of my English majour's complaining: the criticism in THE WESTERN CANON is what matters most for many, and it tends to be good. I have had a general issue with Bloom in his at times anachronistic comparisons of authors, or application of ideas that don't always belong (Gnosticism seems to be his favourite, but I'm not sure it applies as widely as Bloom believes it does), but he is unparalleled in the land of general critics. One will not get anything extremely in-depth, as this is a book of general criticism, but many of the connections and erudite ideas Bloom expounds are stimulating, and encourage reading or re-readings of the great authors.
And perhaps, as some other reviewers have noted, that is what matters most about Bloom. His enthusiasm for reading, his religious devotion to literature, his unparalleled sense for the importance of the great authors--these are the factors that make him great. Reading Dr. Bloom--I call him that with intentional reference to Dr. Johnson!--is like finding an especially enthusiastic (and yes, opinionated) friend, with whom one can sit and share a cup of tea and discuss literature. He inspires you to read, and to think, and to think about what you read. All the complaints about the "School of Resentment" are right, though hyperbolic, but it is his unabashed love of literature that makes Dr. Bloom a critic of the ages.
Radiating out from Shakespeare
Harold Bloom presents a robust, deep, pessimistic and impassioned defence of the canon in this vast book. His thesis is simple - the great books, with Shakespeare at the centre, and other canonical writers radiating out from him, are the ones central to life (if you don't know what they are there is an appendix at the back to get you thinking - and, no, it is not exclusive, nor does Bloom ever claim it is). The value of such books is not social, or economic, or political or moral, or anything but aesthetic. They demand to be read because they offer the highest that human literary endeavor can reach.
And bravo to Bloom for saying this. In Britain, we now have an education system where Meera Syal, a stand up comedian who has penned a couple of novels, has displaced Joyce and Pope from A level reading lists. Shame, shame and shame. Bloom follows Samuel Johnson in advancing great literature as something that makes particular representations universal. And how much contemporary fiction or poetry does this? Bloom's book, with its vast array of literary love and learning, and formidable memory links that ebb and flow like winged messengers between great writers of the ages, demands to be read more than ever. But sadly, Bloom fears he is part of a dying breed. In the conclusion, he articulates his worry that people now alive may witness a time when Shakespeare plays are no longer performed because there is no need. If this happens, then we cannot claim to be living in any sort of civilized society, no matter how democratic our leaders might claim it is.
Getting tired
Mr Bloom seems to have run out of gas, or whatever fuels him. He has become careless and repeats himself frequently.
He also contradicts himself. For example, on page 45 he says, "No other writer has ever had anything like Shakespeare's resources of language, ...," with which I agree. But then on page 59 he says, "Shakespeare's command of language, though overwhelming, is not unique and is capable of imitation."
I hate to say it, because I have enjoyed Mr Bloom's books, but I often have the feeling that he is just playing with words and hasn't really got the the heart (or the spirit) of the various writers he discusses, most especially, and ironically, Shakespeare himself.
Mr. Bloom's favorite critic is, I believe, Dr. Samuel Johnson. Johnson has given us the best of all critical advice about Shakespeare: don't read the critics, forget them, read Shakespeare, then read him again. I am afraid that I must second this view of the critics; in my experience they are a hindrance to one's understanding.
I wish Mr Bloom's publishers would do us readers a favor: put an asterisk at the top of each page on which Mr Bloom quotes Nietzsche's remark about what is already dead in our hearts. Enough already!
