The Western Canon: The Books and School of the AgesNATIONAL BESTSELLER NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD “Heroically brave, formidably learned… The Western Canon is a passionate demonstration of why some writers have triumphantly escaped the oblivion in which time buries almost all human effort. It inspires hope… that what humanity has long cherished, posterity will also.” –The New York Times Book Review Literary critic Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is more than a required reading list -- it is a vision. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the great works of the western literary tradition and essential writers of the ages: the "Western Canon." Harold Bloom's book, much-discussed and praised in publications as diverse as The Economist and Entertainment Weekly, offers a dazzling display of erudition mixed with passion. For years to come it will serve as an inspiration to return to the joys of reading our literary tradition offers us. |
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Page 74
... pragmatic use for the Bible , except for Psalms . It is as though he felt King David , ancestor of Christ , was the only forerunner worthy of him , the only other poet consistently able to express the truth . The reader who comes ...
... pragmatic use for the Bible , except for Psalms . It is as though he felt King David , ancestor of Christ , was the only forerunner worthy of him , the only other poet consistently able to express the truth . The reader who comes ...
Page 148
... pragmatic attitude of Aristophanes is shared by the common- sensical Molière , who otherwise represses the Aristophanic spirit , which would hardly have been appropriate for the court of Louis XIV . God , for Molière , pragmatically ...
... pragmatic attitude of Aristophanes is shared by the common- sensical Molière , who otherwise represses the Aristophanic spirit , which would hardly have been appropriate for the court of Louis XIV . God , for Molière , pragmatically ...
Page 484
... pragmatic test for the canonical . I suppose that once you have " cultural criticism " and " cultural ma- terialism ... pragmatically have forgotten in what country they actually live and teach . Is there , has there ever been , any ...
... pragmatic test for the canonical . I suppose that once you have " cultural criticism " and " cultural ma- terialism ... pragmatically have forgotten in what country they actually live and teach . Is there , has there ever been , any ...
Contents
AN ELEGY FOR THE CANON | 15 |
THE ARISTOCRATIC AGE | 41 |
SHAKESPEARE CENTER OF THE CANON | 43 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Alceste ambivalence American anxiety Austen authentic Beatrice Beckett become Borges called century Cervantes character Chaucer Christian Comedy consciousness critics cultural Dante Dante's dead death Dickens Dickinson Don Quixote drama Edmund Eliot Emerson Endgame essay Falstaff father Faust Feminist Freud Freudian George Eliot Gnostic Goethe Goethe's Hadji Murad Hamlet Hamm Hedda hero Homer human Iago Ibsen imagination immortality invented irony jealousy Jewish John Johnson Joyce Joyce's Kafka King Lear literary literature live Macbeth Mephistopheles metaphor Milton Molière Montaigne moral nature Neruda never Nietzsche novel novelist originality Orlando Othello passion Peer Gynt perhaps personality Persuasion play poet poetic poetry Poldy pragmatic precursor Proust reader romance Sancho Satan seems Selected Poems sense sexual Shake Shakespeare social soul speare spirit story sublime T. S. Eliot tion Tolstoy Tolstoy's tragedy translated trolls Ulysses vision Wake Walt Whitman Western Canon Wife Woolf Wordsworth writer