Harold Bloom, Critic Who Championed Western Canon, Dies at 89

NYT ^ | 10/14/2019 | Dinitia Smith

[ameribbean expat]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Resentment

He had a backbone attached to that brain.

[abigkahuna]

I think you are thinking of Howard Bloom, also a very accomplished man, with a great mind and wit...

[Albion Wilde]

Podcast: Harold Bloom and Albert Brooks

[Verginius Rufus]

If Hamlet was a feminist, he wasn't a very woke feminist. He told Ophelia to get herself to a nunnery.

Whether he meant a convent or a brothel is debatable. I guess a Marxist feminist might consider sex work more liberating than being a nun.

[goldstategop]

Sad news. His criticism of the King James Bible, Shakespeare and the Western Canon are a must-read.

Harold Bloom was our greatest classical literary critic. He was a champion of the classics.

A towering intellect and national resource who will be deeply missed. Baruch Dayan Ha Emet.

[Conan the Librarian]

when I was the book buyer for our Library system, we bought a LOT of his books. Sad loss.

[goldstategop]

I look forward to reading it. He’s a joy to read and you always learn something new.

Bloom’s verdict that Shakespeare Is the central figure of all world literature is unchallenged.

The Bard is the greatest writer in the world, period. Only the Bible rivals Shakespeare for his impact on Western culture.

Western culture is Shakespeare and all of literature after him are footnotes.

[SunkenCiv]

I wondered who'd invented me, I've got some warranty issues. :^) Thanks ae, well said.

[SunkenCiv]

He nailed it. Whoops, that's a sexist term (y'know, for people who live by the tenets of An Agenda Driven Life)..

[wildbill]

Columbia is once again in the throes of deciding whether the core curriculum which still emphasizes the canonical literature and philosophy of Western Civilization or should divert resources and teaching to more diversity.

[SunkenCiv]

"...masters in third world basket weaving...

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[imardmd1]

If you’re interpreting with a political angle, you’re re-writing the book, not reading it for personal insight.

Leftist liberal feminist theologians do the same thing with the Bible, even to retranslating the Will of God completely out of it, using the "dynamic equivalency" hermeneutic.

[wildbill]

I did some graduate studies not so many years ago and found the curriculum being driven by diversity studies even then. The funny part was there just isn’t that much great literature or philosophy texts outside of the Western Civilization cannon.