>In The Western Canon (1994), Harold Bloom criticized Thus Spoke Zarathustra, calling the book "a gorgeous disaster" and "unreadable".
When did you guys realize that Bloom couldn't read for shit?
>>8255988
I don't pay attention to any literary critics.
don't even try kid
if Bloom says something about reading then he's right, maybe not about texts, but reading itself he knows more about than anyone else
>>8255997
What's his best work on reading?
I'd like to have magical aesthetic experiences when I read
>>8255988
I've always and instinctively regarded 'critics' on the whole as little more than parasites.
>>8256036
Literary criticism is the opposite of literary.
Blessed are the creators, not the critics.
>>8256039
>this is what plebs actually believe
>>8256039
does it hurt you when you read literature you can't comprehend because of your stunted intelligence?
In its attempt to be coherent literature, Bloom's probably right, but Thus Spoke Zarathustra's purpose is to be a vehicle for Nietzsche's ideas not art. Even then, his writing is still beautiful and is meant to be parsed like verses from a religious text.
Bloom's been wrong before, remember he talks shit about T.S Eliot and my suspicion is that he does the same for Nietzsche in no small part for having, or at least engendering, similarly hostile sentiments towards Bloom's kin.
>>8256058
On the contrary, bloom and his ilk have never told me anything that I could not (and did not) deduce myself.
>>8256063
ITT: dunning kruger at work
>>8256060
>a vehicle for Nietzsche's ideas not art
wrong
>>8256067
Pseudoscience at work.
>>8255988
Cover looks like Albrecht durer
>>8256039
>Those intuitions which we call Platonic are seldom scientific, they seldom explain the phenomena or hit upon the actual law of things, but they are often the highest expression of that activity which they to make comprehensible.
>>8256060
Nope. You've completely misunderstood Bloom. He counts Nietzsche and Freud as his two biggest influences in The Anxiety of Influence, and he dislikes Eliot not solely because of his Antisemitism, but also because Eliot more or less single-handedly created the hostile intellectual environment that Bloom entered at the start of his career. Keep in mind that Bloom also acknowledges Eliot as a supreme poet; he just thinks he's a shit thinker and an unpleasant man.
>>8256096
How is psychology not a pseudoscience keke
>>8256093
Setsuko Aihara
>>8256093
that's because it is
>>8255988
>>8256010
>>8256036
>>8255996
Bloom's opinion is that literary criticism is in fact a genre of literature, a claim which is easy to verify when you realize how many major writers engaged in criticism directly (in published works) and indirectly (in letters and notes): nearly all of them.
Auden, Joyce, Nietzsche, Emerson, Pope, Shelley, Blake and Coleridge all wrote criticism, often in verse/prose.
Literature is completely bound up in the pursuit of an aesthetic (reading), followed by a mastery of it (writing).
Bloom can be frustrating since he doesn't seem to articulate his major aesthetic vision in a direct way (which seems to me gnostic and Blakean).
But the man is absolutely worth reading, not in the way we do movie reviews (Harold Bloom gives it Two Thumbs Up!), but for insight into the meta-literature that is criticism. He reads like a super-computerized ultra soul, with incredible depth, speed, memory and also a constant attention to the human (which is not to say biographical) lives of readers and writers.
Would reading his criticism aid me in my own readings?
I envy the ability of critics to take such large bounties from the works they read, while I return with only a few summaries of what the theme might have been.
>>8256406
Absolutely. Bloom makes all writing seem epic; literature is the center of his world and he makes you want it to be the center of yours too.
If you've ever heard a musician talk about music, it makes you more interested and improves your ability to listen. For too many of us, this task was given to random adults with a four year degree who, good intentions aside, didn't care all that much for reading.
>>8256286
I thought he didn't like his poetry at all
>>8256006
His book on Shakespeare is great. Just because he fucking loves Shakespeare. The more he likes a certain play, the better the review/discussion of it. All the plays are covered. Just pick up one of S's plays, read it, then read the Bloom essay. It's fun.
I'm not a big Bloom fan. His opinions post-Canon Wars are useless. He's just too old and out of touch. Not his fault. He did great work for years.
>>8256409
Excellent. I'll be sure to read some of his work.
Anything in particular worth picking up?
>>8256394
Good post
>>8256394
Also, this is wonderful. And true.
>>8256416
> His opinions post-Canon Wars are useless
He seems to have semi-retired from academic work and become some kind of popular educator. Isn't this appropriate in light of his age , career and the decline of reading?
>>8256421
not him but ill plug his Visionary Company, which is his work on the romantic poets if you're interseted in those.
>>8256286
>created the hostile intellectual environment that Bloom entered at the start of his career
could you elaborate on this?
>>8256427
Yeah, that's pretty much it. He's produced enough at this point to earn his spot as the greatest literary critic in US. history... Easily.
>>8256421
The intro to How to Read and Why, the Shakespeare companions mentioned here (>>8256416), the Western Canon. Be warned that all the plot elements of works discussed will be completely spoiled. So that poster has given a good recommendation to read a play and then the essay that goes with it afterward.
It sounds like his major academic work is The Anxiety of Influence, but I haven't dared to touch it.
>>8256437
Not him, but I think Eliot hated Romantic poetry and made it uncool and Bloom obviously loves it.
>>8256442
>It sounds like his major academic work is The Anxiety of Influence, but I haven't dared to touch it.
I've heard The Anatomy of Influence is supposed to go over the same ideas, but more accessible and refined. I dunno if that's totally true, but Bloom has said it's the work he wants to be remembered best.
>>8256442
Thanks to all who've replied; I'll be sure to follow your advice.
>>8256456
Is it readable? I've been reading Bloom whenever I get discouraged about the worthwhileness of reading, but most of his writing (in The Western Canon) goes over my head since I have only started reading literature.
I never liked Bloom. He's outdated and boring.
The "start with the Greeks"/Bloomtard contingent of /lit/ is its cancer.
>>8255997
>We do not read to unpack our hearts
I beg to differ. 90% of what I read is angsty as fuck
>>8256410
Now you are just being retarded anon
>>8256410
You're probably thinking of Pound, who he's a bit lukewarm towards
>>8257947
go back to whatever pleb site yoou came from newfag
>>8255988
He's regurgitating Borges word-for-word.
Borges said Zarathustra was "unreadable" and in comes Bloom to repeat it.
But all Bloom's career is to add Freud to Borges' essay "Kafka and His Precursors."
Bloom is a hack.
>>8256287
by the virtue of rigorous empiricism
Bloom can't read shit. It took him 3 years to read Blood Meridian. He hasn't commented anything or has done anything of relevance in some time, he has been wrong many times before, has a great way of dealing with females especially by molesting them and thinks that he is the most intelligent reader and rest 100s of million people are inherently stupid.
>>8255988
Nietzsche literally wrote in bursts of 20 minutes. So it isn't out of place to call his writings incoherent
>>8256020
This, +1
