/lit/ - Literature

>>3714660

It's 'fun' and 'liberating' because it's easy.

>>3563044

He definitely influenced a few prominent writers. I'm just opposed to putting him on that inceptive pantheon that properly belongs to Emerson ('Emerson is God', Bloom) and Whitman ('you found the new wood', Pound).

>tfw Harold Bloom is actually totally equipped to speak authoritatively about American literature

People are listing writers they deem unimpeachable, rather than specific works. I don't think that's wise. We might, for example, be able to unanimously agree that 'Hamlet' is
a fine work of literature, but when we attempt to universally condone 'Shakespeare' we risk having the whole pursuit toppled by someone's opprobrium for 'Coriolanus' or 'Sonnet 42'. Unless we're discussing, and so far we haven't, a writer whose entire legacy is synonymous with a single text (Alain Fournier, for instance) it's surely better to stick to naming works, rather than their authors.

On that note, I'd argue (based on reactions I've seen here and my own opinions) that the aforementioned Bard's tragedies - with the exceptions of 'Timon of Athens', 'Coriolanus', Troilus and Cressida' and 'Anthony and Cleopatra' - are basically untouchable, along with the novel 'Revolutionary Road' by Richard Yates, Byron's 'Don Juan', Pope's 'Dunciad', 'Tom Jones' by Fielding, and Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus'.

I'm not so confident on non-English works, partly because so much depends on which translation(s) you've read, but I'd suggest that Stendhal's 'Le Rouge et le Noir', Goethe's 'Die Leiden des jungen Werthers' and Dante's 'Divina Comedia' are similarly agreeable to all.

>>1672578