Elizabeth Bishop

Bloom's Modern Critical Views

by Harold Bloom (Editor)

Book by

202 pages, Library Binding

First published August 1, 1985

About the author

Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.

Reviews

[Connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most convincing justification for Bishop's extraordinary reputation comes from Penelope Laurans's essay, "Old Correspondences: Prosodic Transformations", in which she writes, "The high valuation on the natural in Bishop's critical statements is especially interesting in light of the range of metrical variation and complicated versification in her poems. For some contemporary poets the 'natural' has implied a certain disrespect for form. Bishop's poetry, on the contrary, has always displayed a wide range of formal inventiveness. Yet, if one asked a competent reader for an extempore comment on formal variation in Bishop's poetry, he might answer that he didn't remember much—it is that subtly done. The appearance of regularity in the face of so much variation is partly evidence of Bishop's technical versatility, but it is also directly connected with the way formal qualities are related to thematic ones in her poetry. It is consistent with Bishop's own preference for the natural that, in her poems, form always yields to the exigency of what she is trying to say. Her patterns are a result of her insistence that formal structures adapt to the developing progression of the poem."

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inexplicably, the essays collected here are all truncated. Why Bloom would think it was a good idea to shorten them when they are already only a couple pages long (according to their citations) is beyond me. As a result, most of them are disjointed and without a strong argument, and it feels like there are far too many of them.

[Tilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️