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/lit/ - Literature

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2424607 No.2424607 [Reply] [Original]

Do feminists/multiculturalists have any good reason to dismiss Bloom as sexist/racist that I'm not aware of? I've never gotten a sexist/racist vibe from him.

Sure he says there are more good white male writers than any other group, but that's only because throughout history they've tended to have more actual opportunity and wealth enough to write serious literature. That's changing now, but you can't deny history.

Why is this controversial at all?

>> No.2424614

I think he's admitted he has no grasp on Eastern literature at all. That's why I personally don't agree with any of his sweeping generalizations. If he limits it to what he knows - the Western Canon - I'm less inclined to get pissy.

>> No.2424613

He too easily dismisses their legitimate concerns as those of envious provincials. Dismissive attitudes go both ways. Also, what do you mean by 'white'?

>> No.2424615

It's complicated and has a lot to do with fairly specific political arguments in the 80s and 90s and various positions that they generally endorsed and he took up. I think most reasonable people would agree that he is not a sexist or a racist personally, but he takes positions that are, to those academic schools, unacceptable.

I think, looking back, that cultural politics in the late 70s and through early 90s, especially in academia, was much different and much more tendentious and hostile and partisan than it is now. Maybe that's just my impression, though.

>> No.2424619

HE IS MALE! HE IS A RAPIST!

>> No.2424620

I mentioned something I read about this guy to my girlfriend, I'm not familiar with him, but anyway, her reply was "He also spent most of his life hating women, gays and blacks."

I didn't bother to ask what she meant, but she was probably just upset that he doesn't praise the magical realism and bizarro fiction shit she likes.

>captcha: hoar nocland

>> No.2424621

>>2424615
Errr, that he disagreed with, and didn't take up

Also, it's important to remember that you can agree or disagree with part of what Bloom says without dismissing or endorsing everything he thinks or believes, for god's sake he's just a guy saying some things, he is not god or the devil

>> No.2424628

>>2424620
But most of his favorite poets were gay.

>> No.2424631

>>2424620
Is there anything he's done besides the Wolf thing that would give any kind of credence to this, besides his academic positions?

>> No.2424641
File: 8 KB, 162x192, harold_bloom.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2424641

Is OP's picture shopped? I didn't think Bloom knew how to smile.

>> No.2424644

>>2424613
Um, the groups who's tended to hold the most power and money in the Western world.

>>2424614
That doesn't have much to do with racism/sexism. He just doesn't believe that translations adequately convey Eastern literature to a Western audience. Which is reasonable.

>>2424615
What positions in particular?

>> No.2424647

>>2424641
I was shocked when I saw it too.

>> No.2424651 [SPOILER] 
File: 16 KB, 324x257, mouth.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2424651

>>2424647
Yeah, it looks pretty familiar, though.

>> No.2424654

>>2424644
"There is no political element to criticism" I guess is the central one? He's pretty against trying to center critical discourse around race and sex, and against trying to shape what we read around those things.

>> No.2424658

>>2424639
you mad and jelly as fuck, son

>> No.2424674

>>2424620

I love how women are so quick to assassinate the character of any man who has opinions that don't fall completely in line with theirs. Judge the merits of his reviews, don't be flippant and bitter like a child.

>> No.2424690

Harold Bloom is a great admirer of the Tale of Genji, written by an Asian woman a thousand years ago. He compares it favorably to Proust. I think that's enough to prove he isn't racist/sexist.

>> No.2424691
File: 157 KB, 746x1000, anna 4.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2424691

>>2424674

Oh god. Either you're a terrible troll or a blatant misogynist. One of those two,

inb4hatingwomyniskewlontheinternets4thewin

>> No.2424694

I don't think anyone dismisses Bloom as racist or sexist, they just dismiss him because his brand of criticism is so far removed (and old-fashioned) compared to everyone else.

The last 40 years have seen criticism branch into specialties based on gender/sex/race/culture/creed/politics. Bloom has plodded forward looking at the words, approaching every author as a human being only.

He's not hip, he isn't tuned into what's current, he doesn't condemn all of society for its ills in his criticism. He just likes pretty words and strong plots.

>> No.2424703

>>2424694
>The last 40 years have seen criticism branch into specialties based on gender/sex/race/culture/creed/politics. Bloom has plodded forward looking at the words, approaching every author as a human being only.

How crazy!

>> No.2424698

>>2424691

Point proven. It's like you don't even want to be subtle about it.

>> No.2424705

>>2424691
GUYS, DONT SPEAK IN STEREOTYPES GUYS, THEY MAY BE TRUE THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME BUT ITS NOT FAIR GUYS, ITS NOT FAIR TO SAY STUFF LIKE THAT YOU GUYS NEED TO BE MORE CONSIDERATE GUYS TRY READING SOME ANDREA DWORKIN

>> No.2424709

The same thing with John Milton. I was reading The Western Canon earlier, specifically the section on Paradise Lost and Milton, and he was saying that Milton's indubitable place in the canon would piss of feminists, but he never went into detail.

>> No.2424712

>>2424705

I'M NOT A MISOGYNIST I JUST THINK WOMEN ARE CHILD-LIKE

>> No.2424722

>>2424631

Wolf(e?) thing?

>> No.2424726

Bloom's Paris Review interview may be a good start for anyone unfamiliar with his work or his controversies.

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2225/the-art-of-criticism-no-1-harold-bloom
>Recently, Harold Bloom has been under attack not just in scholarly journals and colloquia, but also in newspapers, on the op-ed page, on television and radio. The barrage is due to the best-seller The Book of J, in which Bloom argues that the J-Writer, the putative first author of the Hebrew Bible, not only existed (a matter under debate among Bible historians for the last century) but, quite specifically, was a woman who belonged to the Solomonic elite and wrote during the reign of Rehoboam of Judah in competition with the Court Historian.

>> No.2424729

>>2424722
naomi wolf claimed that while she was an undergraduate at yale, bloom "sexually encroached" on her by touching her thigh.

>> No.2424743

>>2424729
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2004/02/crying_wolf.html

>> No.2424754

>>2424729
Making a pass at a person of the opposite sex is now considered misogynistic behavior? Does this only apply when it's a man making the pass?

lol

Reminds me of that woman who was in an elevator, and a man invited her to his room for coffee and she decided that because his ulterior motive was presumably sex, it was a highly offensive and sexist act.

The fuck is wrong with people

>> No.2424755

>>2424709

You're not familiar with feminist critique of Paradise Lost?

>> No.2424768

>>2424754
It's probably because he's like 30 years older than her. Kind of a creepy story if true. It hardly makes him a misogynist though

>> No.2424770

>>2424754
She was an undergrad and his student. It was inappropriate behavior.

>> No.2424780

>>2424770
>not fucking undergrads

Isn't that the point of tenure?

>> No.2424804

>>2424726
Thanks for the link.

>INTERVIEWER
>Are there any authors you’d like to have known, but haven’t?

>BLOOM
>No. I should like to have known fewer authors than I have known, which is to say nothing against all my good friends.

>> No.2424814

>>2424674
>I love how women are so quick to assassinate the character of any man who has opinions that don't fall completely in line with theirs.

Does this mean every anon and every tripfag on /lit/ is a woman?

>> No.2424830
File: 66 KB, 460x345, bloomin.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2424830

>>2424743
>"You have the aura of election upon you."

Fucking LOL

>> No.2424835

>>2424830
Yeah, Bloomie is the king of pickup lines.

>> No.2424881

I don't know anything about this fat, old Jew, but he sounds like one awesome dude.

>> No.2424914

>>2424830
He reads too many books.

>> No.2424918

I like Harold Bloom.
At his core, he just wants more people to read great books.