Harold Bloom, Dies Aged 89

Hello Gentle Reader

Harold Bloom was known as one of most granite literary and cultural institutions of American Letters and literary culture. In becoming a monolith of a particular staunch idea of aesthetics and literature, Harold Bloom could evoke strong reactions. Those who praised his intellectual sensibilities, literary catering, and defense of the Western Canon; and the others who decried him as outdated, unfalteringly traditional, and lacking progressive ideas with regards to the social impact and potential of literature, they often styled him a: first class patronizing patriarch. Either way, Harold Bloom never apologized. His criticism was not porous. It was sedimentary in form: tight and compact. They could be chipped away but they remained consistent. However one chose to depict Bloom; be it outdated oddball, or defender of the old guard—there was no denying he was a truly influential critic. The polarization merely added girth and weight to his criticism, theories, and persona. Even if one never read much by Harold Bloom, they knew who he was, and often held some peripheral opinion with regards to the critic.

The aesthetic perspective that Bloom promotes is an admirable one. Harold Bloom promoted readers to read literature with an aesthetic attitude, and to disregard the notion of ideological driving forces. Literature should be written for literary measures first, never written to meet ideological, social conformity, social criticism, social movements, political panhandling or other external socio-political measures. Harold Bloom criticized, decried, and condemned what he called the literary “School of Resentment,” which is a pejorative term referring to literary criticism and theory such as: African American Studies, Marxist Literary Theory, New Historical Criticism, Feminist Criticism, Gender Studies (includes: women’s studies and queer studies); and the post-structuralist literary criticism, philosophy and theories of: Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault. Harold Bloom viewed these ‘schools,’ as being overtly preoccupied with minor social, political, and ideological concerns. In short, it could be described (by Blooms perspective) as the literary equivalent of political correctness or the ‘diversity hire.’ For Harold Bloom the “School of Resentment,” sought to ensure literature is ‘inclusive,’ and that writers from a diverse and minority background were promoted or included in literary canon, in order to ensure that literature would be able to showcase the plethora of literary experiences of all individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, gender, sexual orientation, et cetera. It removes the aesthetic measures of literature, and contorts it to the realms of socio-political machinations, and ideological confirmation. To a degree one can agree with Harold Bloom on this. Diversity, equity, inclusiveness for the sake of it, is disingenuous. Just as a company should hire a candidate based off competency, works of literature should be considered off of merit. Needless to say Harold Bloom often faced criticism for these views. Yet his perspective is not entirely without merit. Universities and colleges should be incubators of free thought, freedom of expression and speech, and thought provoking discussion, even the ones in which we do not agree with. Now these same institutions have become factories of mind numbing social concepts, which demand political correctness, social conformity, apologetic lectures on gender, and sermons on the idea of unconscious bias, and the desire to create homogenous literature or else risk  the accusation cultural appropriation—it’s ludicrous! Then again, we live in the age where being offended is considered moral (as if they’re being crucified).

I may not have always agreed with Harold Bloom. In fact, I disagreed with him more often than not. I found him disagreeable, with a personality fitting of a gallstone. But his open disproval and adversarial tone he took to literary values being polluted by political discourse and social deconstruction, has my support. I also enjoyed his often long windbag speeches riddled with such potent vitriol one had to laugh. He knew how to unleash an insult in the lengthiest manner. Though I never quite agreed with his overt support for Philip Roth. I was never quite sure whose petulance over Roth being denied the Nobel Prize for Literature was louder, Philip Roth’s passive aggressive annoyance, or Harold Blooms foghorn response.

Admire him or despise him, Harold Bloom was memorable, influential, and stuck to his opinions, his criticisms, and his stances. He was never short of stalwart conviction.

Rest in Peace, Harold Bloom.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary