is he a hack?

>Only speaks English and irrelevant Jewish languages (Hebrew's day has passed), failed to become fluent in Latin, Greek, German, etc, despite years of dedicated study
>His criticism is hit or miss, few insights, and mostly exaggerations of his own opinions.
>Self-appointed himself as some kind of guardian of literature. Despite this, his works on criticism, including series he edits, are mostly filler and will be forgotten after his death.

>>8494204
Yes.

(((Bloom))) is a meme.

>>8494288
(((literature))) is a meme

>bloom isnt a meme
prove it then

>>8494204
No he isn't. His popular criticism is self-indulgent, but he makes literature accessible to the masses, which I think is a good thing.

His early criticism of Blake is fantastic, and his deconstructive work, before he got stuck on influence, is also quite good. Once he forsook Northrop Frye he went mad, though.

No, he's a Harold.

>>8494204
Nice pic of Bloom speed reading without even using his eyes.

>>8494935
if he makes literature accessible, he's more than a little bit turgid.

around what year did bloom begin to slip for the worse?

>>8494962
he read the cover of the book, that's all he needed to know about it.

Even worse, he's a critic!

File: sad bloom.jpg (330KB, 1600x1050px) Image search: [Google]

330KB, 1600x1050px

Why does he always look so fucking sad?

Does constantly defending the canon from the onslaught of Harry Potter and Stephen King novels take this much out of you?

Was in a bookstore today and found a used copy of his "How to Read and Why." I sat down with it for a few minutes, mostly to read what he had to say about Flannery O'Connor and "Miss Lonelyhearts." Wasn't that bad, actually. But he said that a book similar to "Miss Lonelyhearts" could no longer be written due to the fact that the political climate of most universities nowadays kills any potential for parody.

On a similar tract, he also lamented the fact that many universities would have students study the undergarments of Victorian women over Charles Dickens...A joke (I hope?? Undergarments??), but I guess it goes along with the trend in English departments to turn away from teaching books by old dead white men.

So...I'm wondering...Is it possible to study literature at a graduate level nowadays without, you know, the bullshit?

>>8495038
He's clearly happy and old. Frowns and furrowed brows don't mean you're sad.

>>8495038
I think he just wants to be remembered that way, as the gentle, kind, but helplessly melancholy critic who borne the total weight of The Canon on his damned and mortal soul.

It's entirely something he does for the cameras.

Brilliant but fatuous is my conclusion, after reading three books by him. Which is fine, in my eyes. He remains my intellectual (or at least critical hero), though he certainly has his limits. He degrades over time: The Anxiety of Influence is considered a masterpiece by all who understand it, and his early book on Yeats is also excellent, as I suspect all his early works are. But by the time you get to his book on Shakespeare, things begin to slip: there are plenty of insights in that book, but I feel that many of them are merely repeated from the pages of past critics. It is, at the very least, an excellent resource on Shakespearean criticism, presented in a compelling style. By the time you get to The Anatomy of Influence, there's still insight, but it's the diamond within the rough. I would not recommend 'seriously' reading books by him after The Western Canon: they are pleasant and relatively easy, at least for someone who shares his enthusiasm for the greats, but they are not immense and complex creative works like The Anxiety of Influence. So read them if you want a laudatory diversion. Later Bloom is merely sympathetic; if you want a Bloom that will intellectually challenge and surprise you at every turn, read his stuff from the 70s.

>>8495165
excellent post just what i was looking for, anon. thank you

bloom is shit