A Map of Misreading

by Harold Bloom

In print for twenty-seven years, A Map of Misreading serves as a companion volume to Bloom's other seminal work, The Anxiety of Influence . In this finely crafted text, Bloom offers instruction in how to read a poem, using his theory that patterns of imagery in poems represent both a response to and a defense against the influence of precursor poems. Influence, as Bloom conceives it, means that there are no texts, but only relationships between texts. Bloom discusses British and American poets including Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, Warren, Ammons and Ashbery. A full-scale reading of one poem, Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," represents this struggle between one poet and his precursors, the poem serving as a map for readers through the many versions of influence from Milton to modern poets.

For the first time, in a new preface, Bloom will consider the map of misreading drawn by contemporary poets such as Ann Carson and Henri Cole. Bloom's new exploration of contemporary poetry over the last twenty years will illuminate how modern texts relate to previous texts, and contribute to the literary legacy of their predecessors.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Poetry, Nonfiction, Literature, Criticism, Philosophy, Classics

240 pages, Paperback

First published February 6, 1975

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

[Mattschratz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is my poem about Harold Bloom’s A Map of Misreading.

I wrote a poem
About a bird, in a bush.
And Harold Bloom said, “See, you are obsessed with Shelley.”
And I said, no, this is about a bird
Or maybe my parents
Or maybe a girl I like
Or maybe just a bird.
And Harold Bloom said, “No, Shelley”
He said, “I have this map”
And yelled a bunch of Greek
And he seemed pretty confident, and now I don’t even know.


Harold Bloom called me after he read this poem, to murmur that it had a weak clinamen and that it was locked in an obvious death struggle with Marianne Moore.

[Chris Via]

Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdurl...

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like The Anxiety of Influence, this book is very useful. In fact, it is more readable and interesting than The Anxiety of Influence.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harold Bloom’s second book regarding his theory that poets misread their precursor poets, which becomes the source then of their creative output. Or, put another way, there are no separate texts; only relationships between texts.

I prefer his more generalized books about reading, but he does make an interesting case for his theory. He does wander off, though, into parts either incomprehensible or a dead end.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

In A Map of Misreading, Professor Bloom discourses on his dense, complex theory of poetic influence, first elaborated in The Anxiety of Influence, and applies his "poetic ratios of Misreading" to such poems as Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came (Robert Browning), As I Ebbed (Whitman), The Auroras of Autumn (Wallace Stevens), and poems by other "strong poets." The text can be daunting, so I recommend reading it at least twice.

[Jim Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always interesting to read a book by the man who has read more than God. Difficult to understand in spots, especially his sui generis tabling of rhetorical tropes. But that also helped turn me on to Kenneth Burke. Very much enjoyed his walk-through of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

[Cep Subhan KM]

After the theory, here comes the practice. A thin book with a magnificent practical criticism of The Anxiety of Influence.

[عائشة المرّي · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this will be like the previous book of his. “ the anxiety of influence”
But nothing beats the previous book.. even Harold him self.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Long ago, when Robert Kelly was my teacher, he gave me a little synopsis of "misprision," but of course he did it in the Kelly mode--a rather frank departure from what Bloom actually does in this book. There's a short synopsis in the introduction of (mis)reading as fascinatingly analogous to Lurianic Kabbalism, but otherwise, this is a one-note reprise of Bloom's anxiety of influence theory. The arrogance! The reductiveness! The overblown prose!
Best to pass on this book.

[Colleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Snooze fest