/lit/ - Literature

>>23280098
Blood Meridian was the final novel to be added to the Western Canon. Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe.

>The theory of anxiety of influence is a theory applied principally to early nineteenth century romantic poetry.
>It is based primarily on Bloom's belief that there is no such thing as an original poem, that every new composition is simply a misreading or misinterpretation of an earlier poem and that influence is unavoidable and inescapable; all writers inevitably, to some degree, adopt, manipulate or alter and assimilate certain aspects of the content or subject matter, literary style or form from their predecessors.
Was he retarded?

I am a writer of no Discernible Talent. I swear to amend this by reading 100 books this year. And then 100 books every year after that.

who elected this nigga king of books?

I want to achieve gnosis through imaginative literature, like Harold Bloom did while reading Shakespeare as a young lad. How do I do this?

>>22603539
Can't say I've read the thread because there's nothing there to read

>>22582057
Now you're prepared to consoom slop by Stephen King

>I’m a sort of Emersonian Gnostic. I believe, as Emerson did, in the god within—that there is loaded within the rock of ourselves that oldest and best part of us, which in some curious sense is divine.
>I was teaching Emerson's essay on self-reliance the other day. And I came to that great passage, which has fascinated me for years, where Emerson says that in every work of genius we behold our own rejected thoughts—they come back to us shining with a certain alienated majesty.

Have you ever achieved gnosis while reading a favorite author? This happened to me one time while I was reading Milton and the Old Testament; it felt like the scales were being removed from my eyes and I was being shown a version of myself that I forgot about centuries ago. It was a weird and almost sexual feeling.

Thoughts of him, /lit/?

So let me get this straight. The guy who came up with the Western Canon only knew one western language? What the fraud is going on?

Any other great spiritual guides to the western canon? I love Harold Bloom but I'm getting tired of his Jewish gnosticism. I desire more sober modes of appreciating "imaginative literature" than is given to me under Bloom's pragmatic usages of ancient eastern speculations centered around the "Eternal Self" and the stranger God who wanders on the outskirts of the universe looking for his lost divine sparks.

This guy is memed to death. All bullshit aside, did the man actually write anything worth reading? Does he have any books that hold up as genuinely worth reading?

Autistic retard here. How do I develop taste? People keep talking about good and bad literature like it's not subjective, and I'm lost. I can read Dickens and then Ada Palmer and not see a difference in quality between them. I have no idea why Shakespeare is the GOAT, or why Dracula is good while The Lair of the White Worm is shit.
How can I train myself? Any book recs?
Any way I can do the same for art in general -- film, music, etc. I am legit autistic.

Is Harold Bloom right to say imaginative literature is the most pragmatic way to achieve gnosis in the modern world?

>>22054485
If you don't read for hours a day, at a modest pace of at least one page per minute or (at most) two minutes, then you will never, ever get to experience reading. If you can't read the OP canon in less than two years, then there is no point in you posting on /lit/. It beggars belief anyone would post on a literature forum without having read all that is to be read, and read deeply.
Even if you are a slow reader, you can read four hours a day outside of work. That is at least 120 pages a day. Across a week, that would be a longish novel, or a few shorter ones. It certainly would be enough for several poetry selections.
Across a year, you should do at least 45,000 pages of reading. If you start reading from 18 until your 60s (when your mind deteriorates slowly), then you would have read nearly 2,000,000 pages. That is thousands of books. Start now. Before it is too late. If you don't read around 5000-10,000 books, then you have not read the best that has been written, then you can't be said to have read at all.
If you're reading this now, then it means you can read books. Don't be like the rest of the plebeians who languish in obscure ignorance.

>>21892700
There's nothing there to read. It's not Charlotte's Web.

>"/lit/ pseuds "

What were his flaws? What was he wrong about?

What are your thoughts on Bloom as a critic, and as a defender of the western canon?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVWiwd0P0c0
my man HB makes some sense here

“You know, I don’t want to be offensive. But ‘Infinite Jest’ is just awful. It seems ridiculous to have to say it. He can’t think, he can’t write. There’s no discernible talent…

“But Stephen King is Cervantes compared with David Foster Wallace. We have no standards left. [Wallace] seems to have been a very sincere and troubled person, but that doesn’t mean I have to endure reading him. I even resented the use of the term from Shakespeare, when Hamlet calls the king’s jester Yorick, ‘a fellow of infinite jest.’”

>>21489823
Harold Bloom disagrees.

>claims he can read 1000 pages in an hour
>therefore he can read war and peace by Leo Tolstoy in under 2 hours

I’m sorry but this has got to be bullshit, I know he’s a Jew and Jews are le heckin smart but he’s not even ashkenazi. And even he was itd still be horseshit he reads that fast. I read about 10-20 pages a day and I’m thinking I need to slow down

Whatever happened to evaluative criticism? Formal criticism is nice, but it feels so cold and detached. I'm pretty sure Frye is the root of all this. Bloom was the last truly meditative critic.