/lit/ - Literature

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Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:47:06 2014 No.5211516 [Reply] [Original]

The 26 authors Harold Bloom thinks are central to the Western Canon:

Shakespeare
Dante
Chaucer
Cervantes
Montaigne
Molière
John Milton
Samuel Johnson
Goethe
Wordsworth
Jane Austen
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson
Charles Dickens
George Eliot
Tolstoy
Henrik Ibsen
Freud
Proust
James Joyce
Virginia Woolf
Franz Kafka
Jorge Luis Borges
Pablo Neruda
Fernando Pessoa
Samuel Beckett

What does /lit/ think?

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:51:21 2014 No.5211529 >>5211516 It's a great list.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:54:03 2014 No.5211541 it irritates me far too much that you left some author's first names out but kept others why the fuck does george eliot get a first name but not tolstoy?

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:54:08 2014 No.5211542 why is pablo neruda there

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:54:21 2014 No.5211544 It's a list full of nerds. I bet they can't even throw a football

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:54:50 2014 No.5211545 I think Jane Austen sucks. >But it's a satire! No it isn't. >But the prose! What about it? It's unremarkable. >But the emotion! I feel nothing.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:55:10 2014 No.5211548 >>5211541 because A: thats how it was listed in wikipedia B: there are two eliots you could think of C: george eliot (mary ann evans) is nowhere near as famous as tolstoy

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:55:23 2014 No.5211551 >>5211541 Other Eliots that are more famous probably

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:55:42 2014 No.5211553 No Homer?

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:56:14 2014 No.5211554 >>5211541 If he had just said Eliot, would it be George Eliot, or T. S. Eliot? On the other hand, there is only one Tolstoy.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:56:46 2014 No.5211557 >>5211553 he wasn't a writer

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:57:56 2014 No.5211560 >>5211557 You're right. He's a nuclear power plant safety technician.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:58:03 2014 No.5211563 Freud is less influential than almost any philosopher. Homer, Virgil, and most everything from the ancients are all missing. Where is Emerson? There would be no Whitman without Emerson. This is a pretty arbitrary and bad list full of great authors.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:58:04 2014 No.5211564 >>5211551 >>5211554 ok fair point but i chose a bad example. there's only one dickens and dickinson and whitman and milton etc., but they all get a first name...

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:58:55 2014 No.5211567 >>5211545 thats a nice opinion you got there shame it isnt anything else

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:59:05 2014 No.5211570 >>5211516 actually he mentions other authors in the preface he might have included, but he wanted to keep it economical and felt this selection is representative enough of the others

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:59:19 2014 No.5211572 >>5211545 are you actually attempting to argue that Austen isn't satire? it fairly explicitly is

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 21:59:29 2014 No.5211573 >Austen >Ibsen >Pessoa >Neruda These can go

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:00:02 2014 No.5211577 >>5211563 I'm assuming you'd have to read the book to understand why he chose them, nigga.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:01:05 2014 No.5211580 >>5211573 >>5211545 samefag

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:01:29 2014 No.5211582 >>5211516 No Dostoyevsky? C'mon Bloom I'd say both Neruda and Pessoa are debatable choices (from both an aesthetic and historical point of view)

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:02:04 2014 No.5211586 >>5211577 But I could be reading other, better things that aren't prima facie awful.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:02:24 2014 No.5211587 >>5211582 >Dostoyevsky there is no way he is central to a canon he was almost an afterthought in blooms 100 geniuses

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:02:25 2014 No.5211589 >>5211516 Neruda on the same list as Shakespeare and Dante. Bloom are you serious.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:03:28 2014 No.5211590 >>5211586 How can you say it's awful when you haven't read it? Oh, wait: this is /lit/ Carry on.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:04:02 2014 No.5211591

>>5211580
No, it isn't. I'm down with Ibsen, and haven't read Neruda or Pessoa, so I can't comment on them.

>>5211572
There is absolutely nothing to indicate this. If it is so explicit, why don't you produce some evidence to support your claim? Shouldn't be hard if you're right.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:04:30 2014 No.5211592 >>5211590 I didn't say it was awful. I said it was awful at a glance. Is comprehension really too much to ask from /lit/?

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:04:32 2014 No.5211593 >>5211545 Most of her works are 'just' comedy, some are satirical. The prose is neat and excellent. She's famed for it. What authors / examples would you give to counter it? They are emotional. What evokes emotion in you?

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:04:47 2014 No.5211594

>>5211589
Pablo Neruda is by general consent the most universal of those poets and can be regarded as Whitman's truest heir. The poet of Canto general is a worthier rival than any other descendant of Leaves of Grass, a difficult statement for me, as a lover of Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens, to make. I am skeptical whether Ne ruda, for all his variety and intensity, truly was of Whitman's eminence, or of Emily Dickinson's, but no Western hemisphere poet of our century can sustain a full comparison to him. His unfortunate Stalinism is frequently an excrescence, a kind of wart

Borges, Neruda, and Pessoa: Hispanic-Portuguese Whitman I 4 7 9
on the texture of his poems, but except in a few places it does not greatly mar Canto general. Neruda, in his relationship to Whit man, followed Borges' pattern: initial discipleship, followed by denunciation, culminating in a complex revision of Whitman in the poet's later works. In an interview in 1966 with Robert Bly, Neruda distinguished the poetry of Hispanic America (his own and Cesar Vallejo's) from that of the modern Spanish poets, so many of whom had been his friends: Lorca, Hernandez, Alberti, Cernuda, Aleixandre, Machado. They had behind them, in the Spanish Golden Age, the great poets of the Baroque-Calder6n, Quevedo, G6ngora-who had named everything that mattered. The appeal of Whitman was that he taught how to see and name what had not been seen or named before:

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:05:00 2014 No.5211595 >>5211557 ..fair enough

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:05:03 2014 No.5211597 Whenever I see my favorite authors being criticized on /lit/ I get excited because I enjoy reading well thought out criticisms but it pretty much always boils down to "I don't like him therefore he sucks/is unimportant"

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:05:45 2014 No.5211599 File: 33 KB, 500x354, 1350508717598.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5211516 >Pablo Neruda >Fernando Pessoa

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:06:10 2014 No.5211601 >>5211591 literally read the opening line of Pride and Prejudice

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:08:14 2014 No.5211611 >>5211601 You're going to have to be more specific, because I'm not seeing it.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:08:30 2014 No.5211614

>>5211587
but... why? Brothers Karamazmov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Notes from Underground (and pretty much everything else he wrote) are all brilliant and epic. They're also considered classics widely, the titles even read/recognized by common folk.

D is a titan compared to others on this list!

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:09:32 2014 No.5211618

>Bloom would later disown the list, saying that it was written at his editor's insistence and distracted from the book's intention.

Oh wow.

>The book argues against what Bloom calls the "School of Resentment", in which he includes feminist literary criticism, Marxist literary criticism, Lacanians, New Historicism, Deconstructionists, and semioticians.

That's some reactionary shit right there.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:09:33 2014 No.5211619

>>5211516
Half of them wrote in English (and only one Italian? one Spaniard?).

Ridiculous anglo-centric list, thus invalid.

Also, too many modern authors.

I'd remove at least 15 of them, add Dostoevsky, Diderot, Machiavelli, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, other stuff, and Greeks + Romans.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:10:08 2014 No.5211621 >>5211593 >What authors / examples would you give to counter it? Anyone else on that list for starters. >What evokes emotion in you? Things that aren't about rich people having tea parties. You know, real struggles.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:11:03 2014 No.5211624 Replace Ibsen with Hamsun Replace Freud with Steinbeck or Faulkner

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:12:44 2014 No.5211631 >james joyce le arse full of farts harold bloom's opinion is irrelevant

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:14:24 2014 No.5211639 >>5211618 >>Bloom would later disown the list, saying that it was written at his editor's insistence and distracted from the book's intention. hes talking about the appendix list at the bottom, not the 26 authors

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:15:35 2014 No.5211645

>>5211614
>D is a titan compared to others on this list!

Yes, he's easily in the all-time top 5.

No one reads Wordsworth or Dickinson out of anglospeak countries, it's like a Frenchman saying Lamartine and George Sand are essential to the Western Canon (but not Shakespeare).

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:16:21 2014 No.5211648 >>5211599 Learn Spanish and get over yourself

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:17:19 2014 No.5211652 >>5211619 lets be honest here English is the most important language to ever exist

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:17:31 2014 No.5211654 >no Dostoyevsky (as anon pointed out) >no Melville >Freud over any other philosopher (as anon pointed out) >no Nabokov Bloom wut

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:17:32 2014 No.5211655 >>5211614 He didn't reinvent anything. His work is good, but not groundbreaking.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:19:44 2014 No.5211670 ITT: people wondering why their favorite authors arent on the list I'm 100% sure Bloom has more of a clue than you do, how about reading the book instead of getting butthurt over why someone isn't on the list.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:20:00 2014 No.5211673 >>5211655 What other writers prior had such keen insight to a character's psychology

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:20:42 2014 No.5211676 >>5211652 well actually you forgot Poland

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:20:54 2014 No.5211677 >>5211624 >replace Ibsen He changed drama. Hamsun didn't.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:20:57 2014 No.5211678 >>5211655 His books were like the most stirring moments of my life, even stronger that anything I did experience by myself (and I had a weird, hard life at some point). Apart from that, as you say: >His work is good

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:22:09 2014 No.5211682 >>5211624 no, those are terrible substitutions. Ibsen and Freud are much more important to literary / world history.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:22:10 2014 No.5211683 >>5211655 "Dostoyevsky is the only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn." - Fredrick Nietzsche

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:23:10 2014 No.5211686 >>5211670 what book

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:23:18 2014 No.5211688 >>5211682 Freud seems to have had a huge influence on Faulkner.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:23:32 2014 No.5211689 >>5211683 >>5211678 both subjective opinions in no way a measurement of influence on literature

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:23:36 2014 No.5211690 >>5211654 >no Melville His influence is primarily American.

>>	PacmanTheManager !quhOzR1Ess Tue Jul 29 22:24:22 2014 No.5211692 >>5211676 What the fuck are you even talking about

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:24:51 2014 No.5211694 >>5211689 True, it's not like Nietzsche ever wrote anything.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:24:52 2014 No.5211695 >>5211673 Shakespeare Chaucer Cervantes Milton

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:25:36 2014 No.5211697

>>5211670
ITT: people wondering why a jackass named Bloom says that only his 26 favorite authors are "central to the Western Canon"

>>5211689
>global influence of an author on literature isn't determined by subjective opinions of people who read his books

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:26:50 2014 No.5211702 >>5211694 I don't even understand what you were trying to say.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:27:10 2014 No.5211706 >>5211695 Shakespeare had weak psychology, he can't even explain why Iago does what he does

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:28:25 2014 No.5211710 >>5211686 the western canon 1994

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:29:24 2014 No.5211717 >>5211702 I'm saying that to suggest Dostoyevsky never had an influence on later writers as a response to a later writer saying he was influenced by Dostoyevsky is idiotic.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:29:30 2014 No.5211718 >>5211706 >Shakespeare weak at anything back to elementary school sport

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:29:56 2014 No.5211721 >>5211702 >ultra-influential Nietzsche (who isn't on the list) basically says that Dostoevsky is the most influential novelist ever (but he isn't on the list either) >"these are only subjective opinions"

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:30:01 2014 No.5211723

>>5211690
as an American, I can understand that, but then again he has someone like Dickens but not Balzac. Both wrote about similar topics in similar way, and its been my understanding that Balzac was much more wider read and had more influence globally than Dickens, who reigns in the anglophone world.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:30:11 2014 No.5211724 >>5211697 >his 26 favorite authors >no Crane, no Stevens, no Emerson, no Nietzche He takes scholarship too seriously to do that. >global influence >2 people You must rid your mind of butthurt

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:31:15 2014 No.5211727 >>5211706 He doesn't explain anything. I've never read a word from his own lips.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:31:22 2014 No.5211729 >>5211723 lol Dickens is infinitely more influential than Balzac dont be stupid

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:33:57 2014 No.5211745 >>5211717 I'm not saying he didn't influence anyone. Robert Louis Stevenson influenced Joyce. Does he belong on the list? To be on this list requires a mix of reinventing form/tradition, aesthetic merit, and influence.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:34:17 2014 No.5211749 >>5211654 One could argue that literary modernism would not have happened (or at least would have happened much later than it did) without Freud. He has more of a direct influence on the course of Western literature than any other philosopher.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:35:48 2014 No.5211756 >>5211721 >most influential author ever Not even Nietzsche thought that, who I think should be on the list.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:36:25 2014 No.5211760

>>5211745
But Dostoyevsky engaged with the Russian literary tradition (thus breaking ground), has aesthetic merit, and as already demonstrated (to say nothing of his influence on other writers) had influence. Comparing Dostoyevsky to Stevenson is laughable.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:36:47 2014 No.5211763

Half of those authors wrote exclusively in English

>language bias, check

almos three quarters of them wrote after 1800 (almost a half wrote mostly during the twentieth century)

>time bias, check

Also, no Greek or Latin author.

>modern bias, check

only 26 authors

>ridiculously small sample size, check

26 also has a significance in the kabblistic tradition

>ethnic bias, check
You can also wonder wether George Eliot is really more central to the Western Canon than Petrarch or Gogol, or Chekov, or Balzac, and why Freud is here but almost all other pick are fiction writers or poets.

>pet author bias, check

I think we're almost there, Harold. Wait a minute...
>genre bias, not check

I'm sorry Harold. Look like we're not making it this time. Too bad, it was so close. We fall short, by one criterion, of having a 100% pure guaranteed internet shit list of great authors. Try again next time.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:37:06 2014 No.5211765

>>5211718
Are you retarded or what?
Shakespeare has a lot of weak parts: underwhelming psychology, lack of culture (Greeks saying "Amen", really?), average or unoriginal stories, too many distractions and vulgarity, etc.
Just because he has the most exquisite wit and overabundant power doesn't mean he excels at everything.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:37:43 2014 No.5211768 >>5211760 tolstoy is superior to dosto in every way imaginable

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:38:51 2014 No.5211774 >>5211765 autism

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:39:42 2014 No.5211779 >>5211760 >engaged >Russian literary tradition And Stevenson interacted with the English tradition. So what? If the list were of the Russian canon, he would certainly deserve a place. But in all the western world, he was outmatched by Tolstoy.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:41:32 2014 No.5211788 >>5211756 I wrote: >most influential NOVELIST ever But you greentexted: >most influential AUTHOR ever Stop falsifying what I say, if you've read Nietzsche you know well he didn't hold many novelists in high esteem. Hence my statement.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:41:57 2014 No.5211789 >>5211763 I'm so jaded on /lit/ I cant tell if you are trolling or you actually don't know anything about Harold Bloom and the western canon also it is summer so anything I think is trolling must actually be a retard

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:42:14 2014 No.5211791

you all got trolled, nowhere does bloom claim these authors are "essential". he has HUNDREDS of authors and books on his canon list

also remember that bloom is approximately 423498723398423xs more literary than everyone on this board combined times 100, so anything he says regarding literature is fact

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:43:20 2014 No.5211794 >>5211768 he... he really isn't. I'll grant that Tolstoy completely changed literature, sure. I mean, there are people that follow him/his religion. But D and Tolstoy cover VERY different ground and both are suitable for the list

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:43:31 2014 No.5211795 >>5211791 >you all got trolled, nowhere does bloom claim these authors are "essential". he dedicates an entire book to talking about these essential 26 hahhahhahahahhahha

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:44:35 2014 No.5211801

>>5211794
oh wow

wow wow wow wow wow wow wow

i agree dosto is a great writer, but it is actually heartbreaking to see people think dosto is more important

you can like dosto better, but thinking he is more important is the dumbest thing ive read today

they dont cover very different ground at all

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:44:40 2014 No.5211802 >>5211795 no

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:45:14 2014 No.5211805

>>5211768
>>5211779
This is so wrong. Tolstoy was verbose, but lacked actual aesthetic merit. Try asking a Russian speaker some time what they think of Tolstoy's word piles. He also didn't do anything groundbreaking. His novels are part of the Russian Realism tradition, but didn't start or even improve upon it. Finally, who did he influence? A bunch of peasants to start communes? Big deal.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:45:40 2014 No.5211808

>>5211765
I actually like older writers' general ignorance toward foreigners and pre-Christendom, it's neat to see what people thought of history and other cultures in the past

In King Lear Shakespeare seems to think that ancient English believed in the Roman pantheon, which is WRONG, but at the same time I also like the Roman imperialism and just everything about that shit
It's all very neato to think about

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:45:51 2014 No.5211809 >>5211802 yes, you stupid fuck

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:45:51 2014 No.5211810 >>5211765 >underwhelming psychology Explain Hamlet >distractions and vulgarity I have no clue what you mean by distraction. If you can't handle a sex joke, you should go back to pre-school. >etc As if there's more.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:46:10 2014 No.5211812 >>5211791 Argumentum ab auctoritate is invalid on an anonymous board, because you don't know who we can be Also, >implying you can't spout bullshit if you know many things >implying opinions can be magically become facts

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:46:44 2014 No.5211815 >>5211801 Please provide demonstrative examples of Tolstoy's influence and importance to literature. Otherwise you're just spewing a contrary opinion.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:46:47 2014 No.5211816

>>5211765
>lack of culture (Greeks saying "Amen", really?)
uh you do realize he was staging a play for a contemporaneous audience, right? A lot of productions of Shakespeare's plays will even change the time period and setting. Sure there will be anachronisms, but historical accuracy is not the point (and I'd bet many Shakespeare scholars would argue those aren't 'mistakes', but I think it is a moot point)

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:46:58 2014 No.5211820 >>5211809 wrong

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:47:10 2014 No.5211821

>>5211805 HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA

IM LEAVING /LIT/ FOREVER

IM DONE

PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY AS RETARDED AS ANY OTHER BOARD, POSSIBLY EVEN MORE SO

OH GOD IM ACTUALLY LAUGHING SO HARD AT THIS IDIOCY

GO READ A FUCKING BOOK YOU DUMB CUNT

GOODBYE FOREVER

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:48:01 2014 No.5211826 >>5211821 Good fucking riddance

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:48:21 2014 No.5211828 >>5211805 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolstoyan_movement

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:48:26 2014 No.5211829

>>5211652
For computer science, aeronautics, holywood movies and American tv series, certainly.

As a literary language it's exactly on par with French and German. And that's keeping things extremely euro-centric. You could argue for English deserving the highest number of spot on that list, but having so much as half the spots is ridiculous. Indeed most of those lists are shit when compiled by a lone individual unless he's an extreme learner of foreign languages.

>>5211729
That's debatable. They both belong in the "famous nineteenth century realist novelists that are almost annoyingly prevalent in literature discussion".

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:48:38 2014 No.5211830 >>5211788 I made a mistake. It was human, all too human. So don't act like a little bitch about it.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:48:47 2014 No.5211831 >>5211821 Here we see the sign of a true intellectual debating literature.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:49:24 2014 No.5211834 File: 2.06 MB, 350x314, 1391555192338.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5211821

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:50:00 2014 No.5211838 >>5211828 I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about literary influence, not the peasant communes I already mentioned.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:51:55 2014 No.5211845

>>5211789
I'm simply answering to OP. I don't know much about Harold Bloom, I just read his Paris Review interview with Antonio Weiss, which I liked. That doesn't change my objections about this list.

No matter what he intended to do with it, the results are here, without comments it's like any internet list of stock famous authors (not that it would be true for any list).

So you can use snappy 4chan words like retard and trolling, and complain about summer and /lit culture, but at the end of the day you're even less adressing my point than I am adressing the point of Bloom's list.

Guess what ? You just became an example of summer.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:52:03 2014 No.5211846

>>5211810
>I have no clue what you mean by distraction
Then read any Greek, Roman, French or Italian tragedy.
Telling jokes and little stories, introducing unimportant characters or unnecessary actions is annoying and vulgar, it's like a factory worker always doing his hair and bragging about his expensive shoes instead of getting the work done.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:52:17 2014 No.5211849 >>5211838 well for one tolstoy influenced dosto, so much so they dosto tried to write brothers karamazov after he read war and peace

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:53:01 2014 No.5211852

>>5211801
I don't think he is "more important." I was responding to the assertion that
>tolstoy is superior to dosto in every way imaginable

which is retarded
here's a good discussion I found which actually address what I was saying by covering different ground
http://www.themillions.com/2012/04/tolstoy-or-dostoevsky-8-experts-on-whos-greater.html

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:53:05 2014 No.5211853 >>5211805 My Russian friend loves Tolstoy, and so do I, so there.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:54:13 2014 No.5211860 I would have thought he'd include Dostoevsky I thought he was quite a fan

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:54:30 2014 No.5211862 >>5211805 >Try asking a Russian speaker some time what they think of Tolstoy's word piles You meant Dostoevsky, right? Russian native speakers know that he was an atrocious stylist.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:54:41 2014 No.5211863 >>5211810 >explain Hamlet you must be the anon who was saying shit about Iago. >implying ambiguity and mystery are bad things

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:55:38 2014 No.5211865 >>5211860 Good thing the list isn't titled, "My Top 26 Authors."

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:56:22 2014 No.5211868 >>5211821 the most butthurt I've seen anyone on 4chan in a while congrats /lit/ slow clap

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:56:42 2014 No.5211870 >>5211846 But they're all purposed.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 22:58:12 2014 No.5211883 >>5211863 I'm not. What I'm saying is ambiguity and mystery are good things.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:02:25 2014 No.5211896

>>5211845
well you're the one who was doing the whole passive aggressive
>blah blah blah, check
thing

to your points:
>language bias
well most great/influential literature *of the Western Canon* was written in English. Sorry.

>time bias
Bloom is specifically picking from post dark ages

>small size
well obviously he had to shorten it as another anon pointed out somewhere here

>ethnic bias
well I somewhat agree with this, which is a point I raised elsewhere here

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:03:27 2014 No.5211903 >>5211883 all right nvm, I'm so confused right now

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:03:52 2014 No.5211906 >>5211853 >>5211862 The Russian speakers I've known have said the opposite. I don't know what to tell you. I'm surprised no one has pulled out Nabokov on me. He hated Dostoyevsky (mocks him mercilessly in Despair) and praised Tolstoy.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:05:09 2014 No.5211908 >>5211723 "... è considerato uno dei più importanti romanzieri di tutti i tempi, nonché uno dei più popolari." >implying Dickens reigns only in the anglophone world

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:05:16 2014 No.5211909

>>5211870
I know it's purposed. That's why it's even more unforgivable and vulgar.
Read what Voltaire said about Shakespeare, it sums up nicely what all the finest minds of Europe thought about Shakespeare when anglospeak countries didn't rule the world (grosso modo: some nice poetic parts, but barbarous, exaggerated and vulgar overall, must not be imitated, good only for low-class people, and his best plays aren't worth Corneille's worst tragedies).
When America and England will stop ruling the world, Shakespeare will become "barbarous and vulgar" again, believe me.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:14:26 2014 No.5211948

>>5211896
>well most great/influential literature *of the Western Canon* was written in English. Sorry.

Lolno.

You are anglocentric, and I respectfully guess you ignore all the rest of European literature.

I'm French, and for many cultured Frenchmen, more than half of these authors should be French. They would all put Balzac, Flaubert, Racine, Céline, Rimbaud, Villon, Rousseau, Hugo, Ronsard, Lautréamont... well above Samuel Johnson or George Eliot.
That's because many cultured Frenchmen (those who have thousands of books) never heard about Samuel Johnson or George Eliot.
Did you read Céline, Ronsard and Lautréamont? Do you know how influential they were for world literature?

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:16:06 2014 No.5211956 >>5211948 More than Shakespeare?

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:20:00 2014 No.5211977

>>5211909
You said they were unimportant and unnecessary. I'm saying they are.
>barbarous
So was Whitman's yalp, which was beautiful.
>exaggerated
His plays are the most human of the English Renaissance.
>vulgar
Did you cry when you heard what nothing means?
You make no sense.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:23:40 2014 No.5211985

>>5211896
>well you're the one who was doing the whole passive aggressive

I was simply making a joke, but the sad thing is how easy it was. There's probably a concept behind this, but the list manages to make the concept sounds uninteresting in advance. "most direct influences of Western modernist literature" would have been seriously more thrilling as a title (without which you can't read the list).

>well most great/influential literature *of the Western Canon* was written in English.

If we define the Western Canon as some entity that happens to have existed after English literature became prevalent, and that is relevant mostly to English speakers, then I'd say not only the execution, but the idea itself is informed by language bias. So, fair then. It's a list grounded on an idea of a Canon that's predominantly English and modern and focused on the same authors that prop up in any internet list of great authors, minus the Ancient and quite a few others. Now that it's spelled out, is still don't seem much better than your typical internet list.

>time bias

Is dark age still a term that a scholar can use without looking like a fool ? I'm a bit surprised, but nevermind. The twentieth century is still very overbearing in this list. Back to my comment above. Wether the bias are on purpose or not don't change much to the interest of the idea.

>ethnic bias

That one was the less serious, I was referring to 26 between the number associated to the name of God according to the simplest Jewish guematria (and as far as I know this number isn't associated to anything else in particular), it was more of a numerical joke.

Now I understand that my comment might have seemed offensive, but it was merely expressing my primary sentiment to this list in a jokey manner. And unfortunately, I'm not sure than my sentiment will change much once I learn what this list is for.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:26:15 2014 No.5211989 >>5211908 That doesn't really disprove his point, though. You'd have to compare it to Balzac's influence to be set.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:28:18 2014 No.5212002 >>5211956 What's fun os French authors are responsible for a great deal of Shakespeare's fame and influence. So the question is muddled.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:28:28 2014 No.5212003 >>5211989 I think both of them should be on the list.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:30:17 2014 No.5212010 >>5211989 >Ballsack lolmfao!

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:31:15 2014 No.5212016 >>5212003 Fair point.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:33:33 2014 No.5212026

>>5211956
Shakespeare was not that influential on world literature. Nearly no one (out of small England) cared about him before the 19th century, and the few who cared couldn't believe how crass he was.
Everything that's before mid-19th century romanticism (in the whole world) received ZERO influence from Shakespeare.
Now we're just wallowing in post-romanticism with global anglospeak domination, so obviously Shakespeare is a big deal... for who? For cheesy, disposable writers.
Because what's that influence like, in the end?
When you see the terrible influence Shakespeare had (on Victor Hugo, for example), when you see how he was an incentive for the phoniest bad taste of 1860's romanticism... it would have been better for modern European literature if Shakespeare never existed.

Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:44:09 2014 No.5212057

>>5212026
To be fair I should say that the Germans were influenced by Shakespeare earlier than the others, because they had no solid literary tradition before romanticism; but the rest of cultured Europe (and the world) quite ignored Shakespeare before the middle of the 19th century. For example, the most advanced Frenchmen like Stendhal were positively talking about Shakespeare in 1825, but they were somewhat lonely and unappreciated for this opinion, and the first wave of French romantics (1800-1830) weren't vocal about Shakespeare AFAIK. See Chateaubriand, Lamartine, even Chénier who's quite harsh about English poets.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:48:23 2014 No.5212075 Spain is the Nigger of Europe Spanish is the Nigger of Romance Languages FUCK Spain, FUCK the Spanish, and FUCK their colonies

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 29 23:58:59 2014 No.5212094 >>5211516 too anglocentric

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 00:00:22 2014 No.5212097

>>5212026
False.

He deeply influenced John Milton. That's a pretty big coup so soon after his death.

Then the wars disrupted theatre, and the Commonwealth banned it.
In the Restoration, theatre had to be imported from France. Shakes was treated as raw material by Francophile snobs following dainty Paris fashions. By the 1700s, he began to be revived by people who weren't uncreative prudes who needed literary blood transfusions.
So, for the 1620-1700 period, we have artificial silence and artificial upholstering, neither of which suppress him long.
It was only with Voltaire ("only" with Voltaire?) and later Goethe and Schiller that he began acquiring continental fame, circa the 1750s.

He was a direct and major influence on all the English Romantics - Keats, Shelley, and Byron. He even penetrated the skull of Wordsworth. Byron in particular diffused the Shakespearean mode of monologue across the Continent. Nietzsche admired both Byron and Shakespeare.

The Shakespearean revival killed French Classicism dead. The informal works created in his wake are the foundation of modern theatre. Parts of King Lear are practically a prophecy of Beckett.

Dostoevsky drank deeply from his well. Tolstoy famously did not, but it's Dostoevsky who echoes most throughout the 20th century - Existentialism, Salinger, etc.

Can you really call Milton, Voltaire, Keats, Goethe, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky cheesy and disposable writers?

Romanticism has some very serious flaws, but its cult of Shakespeare is not one of them.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 00:06:06 2014 No.5212111 >>5212094 this man is a faggot

>>	op Wed Jul 30 00:25:51 2014 No.5212162 >>5211745 Strawman

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 00:41:14 2014 No.5212207

>>5211801
>they dont cover very different ground at all
They cover very different ground. They devote loads of time to philosophy rooted in religion and the lack thereof. One of the primary focuses of War and Peace is Pierre essentially converting to radical Christianity, and it's said he is the main voice of Tolstoy in the novel. Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov is an ardent atheist, and while Alyosha is the protagonist, the meat of the philosophy in the novel lies within Ivan's monologues. These are diametrically opposed points of view, and different points of view cover different ground.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 00:41:27 2014 No.5212208 >All these butthurt Dostoyevsky fags

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 02:19:38 2014 No.5212446 >>5211542 are you fucking kidding me

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 02:34:07 2014 No.5212501 >Ctrl+F Hemingway >no results >abandon thread

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 02:44:02 2014 No.5212527 >>5212501 >hemingway >tolstoy lite

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 03:23:05 2014 No.5212621

Holy shit /lit/ this thread is abysmal.

1. That list is not Blooms whole western canon. Its his idea of really the most important writers: if you want a list that has your favorites, refer to Blooms http://sonic.net/~rteeter/grtbloom.html list.

2. Dostoevsky (and Tolstoy) and Tolstoy weren't groundbreaking or revolutionary authors by any measurement. They wrote realist fiction, which they did not invent or change. They prose, plots and themes were all in line with realist thinking: especially Dosty was considered the ultimate mid-brown author of his day.

3. Neruda is by far the most important post-WW2 poet. Globally.

4. Ibsen is the most important European dramatist since Shakespeare. No, he cannot be excluded from the list.

5. Harold bloom does not consider Greeks and Romans to be part of Western Canon, but Classical canon.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 03:28:55 2014 No.5212639 >>5211516 http://vocaroo.com/i/s1qmZAviKr4W

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 03:38:14 2014 No.5212661 >>5212621 lmao I didn't read this thread but people are arguing against Ibsen????

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 03:45:04 2014 No.5212675 >>5212661 Yeah. Someone wanted him replaced with Hamsun.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 03:45:38 2014 No.5212677 File: 5 KB, 125x90, image.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5211821

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 03:54:37 2014 No.5212711 >>5212621 >Dosty was considered the ultimate mid-brown author of his day. No he fucking wasn't. There's nothing worse than idiots who pretend to know what they're talking about.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 04:00:35 2014 No.5212729 >>5212711 If you can find any contemporary review calling his works masterpieces etc. then by me guest, Dostykid.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 04:44:36 2014 No.5212803 This list is not bad at all. My only complaint is the absence of T.S. Eliot, really. I'd also have liked to see more french writers (Stendhal, Flaubert, Rabelais) but I'm french myself : my opinion is thus biased.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 06:39:20 2014 No.5213018

>>5211618
>>The book argues against what Bloom calls the "School of Resentment", in which he includes feminist literary criticism, Marxist literary criticism, Lacanians, New Historicism, Deconstructionists, and semioticians.
>That's some reactionary shit right there.

Well, he has a point.
There is nothing really wrong with analysing a book from such perspectives, but it gives way to stupid tumblrites calling Shakespeare a cissexist pig and consider his work inherently oppressive in the context of an entire fucking different society.

The problem isn't the analysis itself but the retarded butthurt it creates out of poor education.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 06:41:51 2014 No.5213022 >>5213018 eeeexactly.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 06:43:20 2014 No.5213025 but really Bloom is absolutely right about the School of Resentment I hold it against anyone who isn't coming to a similar conclusion by now

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 06:51:20 2014 No.5213042

>>5211516

It's a list solely made out of general consensus. Bloom wouldn't know who to pick if it wasn't for academics. The man has no personal taste and likes literature only because others do too.

This is the most gutless list ever made. It's just a gathering of influential authors, nothing more.

Not bad, but not serious either.

>science-fiction does not exist to Bloom

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 06:52:53 2014 No.5213047 >>5211587 >there is no way he is central to a canon Bullshit. Dost and many other Russians are central to everything in the universe. Bloom is a pleb.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 06:57:22 2014 No.5213057

>>5213018

This. I studied lit at uni, Switzerland, and for nearly every American author, our teacher would call him a homophobe, a macho, a sexist, a racist, or something like that. Every fucking time.

>Hemingway poses with a rifle
>"See, that's the macho man right there."

Whitman was considered an evil macho because he sported a beard and sat with his family, an obvious patriarch from hell.

Hemingway was termed an evil homophobe because he wrote, in a story, that you carried a knife because of "wolves", homosexual rapists, in Michigan in the 1920's.

Teacher said it was a homophobic and crazy and blablabla. Actual research showed me that man on man rape was very common in the 1920's, especially among freeloaders in trains.

Hate this shit.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 06:57:54 2014 No.5213058

>>5213018
>>5213022
And to add onto this
>Bloom stresses that he does not necessarily object to analysis and discussion of the social and political issues in books, but does object to college literature professors taking a greater interest in their own political motives than the aesthetics of literary worth.

So all the retards complaining that certain types of analysis like the above are stupid and of no value, really need to read the book again.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 06:58:23 2014 No.5213059 >>5213025 100% agree. Hate Bloom for everything else but he's right on the sack here.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 06:59:45 2014 No.5213062 File: 246 KB, 415x295, 1406409178283.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5213042 >Bloom's taste isn't controversial >my favorite Genre isn't claimed to be central to the canon >BLOOM HAS NO TASTE

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:01:51 2014 No.5213067 >>5213057 link to research?

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:02:01 2014 No.5213068

>>5213062

What I personally think of sci-fi doesn't matter but to completely ignore it seems to me evidence that Bloom is better at recognising classics that have been recognised as classics by countless others before than spotting contemporary relevance.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:03:27 2014 No.5213073
File: 28 KB, 316x435, x8825.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>5213067

This book has quite a bit about homosexual rape. The author got raped and took a liking to raping others subsequently.

If you're into serial killers, this is your holy grail. It's written by the guy himself and has contextualising comments from an expert in between chapters.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:04:14 2014 No.5213076 Does anyone know when Bloom compiled this list? I think if he made a new one today, he'd include McCarthy.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:05:09 2014 No.5213081 >>5213076 1994 lol mccarthy would not be on the list

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:14:51 2014 No.5213098 >>5213073 >sodomised a thousand men wow holy shit

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:15:59 2014 No.5213102 >>5213081 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cuccco2umo

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:17:15 2014 No.5213103

>>5213098

If it were another serial psycho, I'd doubt it, but Panzram, I believe.

Dude spent most of his life in prison, raping, and outside, raping.

He even came close to starting world war 2 on his own, a crazy claim that actualy has some weight. He was going to stage a terrorist attack between the US and some European country they were having tensions with.

WW1 started like this for America...

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:20:00 2014 No.5213108 >>5213102 >Blood Meridian is SJW against guns Dropped forever. I was going to read it, I had no idea it was Liberal drivel.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:22:25 2014 No.5213112 >>5211648 Does Bloom know spanish? what other languages?

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:23:47 2014 No.5213113

>>5213108
It isn't, at least not from my perspective. It's just a reactionary analysis of it from Bloom. This interview was taken around the time of a school shooting (I forget which one) and Bloom was feeling extra polemical I guess.

The important and most interesting part of the video though is when he places it behind Moby Dick in the American canon.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:25:23 2014 No.5213117 >>5213113 I like Moby-Dick. Honestly one of the best novels ever written. But I place it behind everything JD Salinger wrote

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:28:16 2014 No.5213122
File: 41 KB, 400x600, 1399341230849.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>5211516
Bloom actually said that he didn't like very much that list;
it was included in the very last moment before Bloom's book were published and because the editor and publisher insisted a lot in 'a list' to be included at the final pages.
Besides, who gives a fuck about lists? Are all of you that childish? Lists are good for orientation or recommendations, but nothing much more.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:36:42 2014 No.5213139
File: 87 KB, 477x700, bloom_lucifer_hb.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

I've heard that Bloom is a Gnostic and also a Kabbalist. Has he written anything on either of them, besides this book? He's made references to them in interviews, but that's about it.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 07:40:06 2014 No.5213155 >>5213139 Omens of the Millenium

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 08:05:59 2014 No.5213198 I like Bloom he is an intelligent man who makes a strong case for whatever he believes in no matter how unpopular he may be and will admit he isn't always correct. He knows books and he knows a lot about them.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 08:06:57 2014 No.5213200 >>5211516 >tfw no Manzoni >tfw no Leopardi When will the americans realize that whitmann is shit level potery

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 08:07:42 2014 No.5213203

>>5213198

I don't understand his hatred for Rowling, though.

I read the first book to see what the fuss was about, and while I never read more about Potter afterwards, I was glad that millions of kids were reading it. The writing didn't strike me as bad at all, pretty high standard for children, really, and it's basically a nice Gothic story with magic and fantasy elements.

If Bloom has a better recommendation for a person's first novel, I'm all ears.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 09:32:44 2014 No.5213435 >>5211654 How would Nabokov be central to the canon? Just admit you haven't actually read much of anything.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 09:36:41 2014 No.5213448

>>5213203
>I read the first book to see what the fuss was about, and while I never read more about Potter afterwards, I was glad that millions of kids were reading it.

>HB: I spend a good part of my life in bookstores – I give readings there when a new book of mine has come out, I go there to read or simply to browse. But the question is what do these immense mountains of books consist of? You know, child, my electronic mailbox overflowing with daily mesages from Potterites who still cannot forgive me for the article I published in Wall Street Journal more than a year ago, entitled "Can 35 Million Harry Potter Fans Be Wrong? – Yes!" These people claim that Harry Potter does great things for their children. I think they are deceiving themselves. I read the first book in the Potter series, the one that's supposed to be the best. I was shocked. Every sentence there is a string of cliches, there are no characters – any one of them could be anyone else, they speak in each other's voice, so one gets confused as to who is who.
>IL: Yet the defenders of Harry Potter claim that these books get their children to read.
>HB: But they don't! Their eyes simply scan the page. Then they turn to the next page. Their minds are deadened by cliches. Nothing is required of them, absolutely nothing. Nothing happens to them. They are invited to avoid reality, to avoid the world and they are not invited to look inward, into themselves. But of course it is an exercise in futility to try to oppose Harry Potter.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 09:38:54 2014 No.5213454

>>5213203
>If Bloom has a better recommendation for a person's first novel, I'm all ears.

Here's an interview where he recommends a whole bunch of books for kids to read: http://www.mrbauld.com/bloomjr.html

>HomeArts: Why should children read? And why should children read good books?

>Bloom: To be coldly pragmatic about it, reading good books will make them more interesting both to themselves and to others. And it is by becoming more interesting--and this sounds callous, but it's true, I think--that by becoming more interesting both to oneself and to others, one develops a sense of one's separate and distinct self. So if children are to individuate themselves, they will not do it by watching television, or by playing video games, or by listening to rock, or by watching rock videos. They will individuate themselves by being alone with a book, by being alone with the poetry of William Blake or A. E. Housman, or being alone with Norse mythology or The Wind in the Willows.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 09:43:33 2014 No.5213469

>>5213454
>Sam Shepard cites no literary influences, claiming to be mainly influenced by The Who and rock music in general
>Bloom includes works by Sam Shepard in his list of supposedly canonical literature
Bloom's probably right that kids should be reading, but "kids do not individuate themselves by listening to rock"? What the hell does that even mean?

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 09:45:26 2014 No.5213476

>>5213057
I'd like to see what that useless, weakling academic has accomplished besides making a living teaching classes on the work of better people than him/herself, while shitting on their work to appease some imaginary progressive superego that will be outmoded in seven or so years anyway

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 09:46:30 2014 No.5213479 >>5213469 I think he means they shouldn't, or maybe can't, build their own identity, "a sense of one's separate and distinct self," around rock music.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 09:51:54 2014 No.5213503 All I see is a bunch of dead white guys, with a couple token dead white women thrown in to lend the appearance of diversity.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 09:55:34 2014 No.5213516

>>5213454
>>5213448

Pure fogeyism.

A little kid is vastly more likely to develop a sense of himself by engaging with a musical subculture or independent video game maker or prestige television drama than by reading some famous dead poet he won't even comprehend.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 10:02:33 2014 No.5213546 >>5211516 Freud but no Nietzsche Wordsworth, Dickinson but no Vergil and Ovid (inb4 no writers xd). Austen instead of Homer (inb4 no writer lol). Okay.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 10:04:48 2014 No.5213551

>>5213057
>
Teacher said it was a homophobic and crazy and blablabla. Actual research showed me that man on man rape was very common in the 1920's, especially among freeloaders in trains.

Ehhh, sounds like an overblown moral panic to me. It wouldn't be the first time people lost their shit over the imaginary crimes of sexual deviants. Do you have a source for this information?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 10:04:49 2014 No.5213552 >>5213503 >lend the appearance of diversity. >implying Harold Bloom cares about lending the appearence of diversity

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 10:15:05 2014 No.5213597

>>5213108
>Blood Meridian is SJW against guns
Could you have written a more idiotic sentence? Does your entire worldview and the terms in which you express it come from 4chan? And no, the book isn't. It's just psychotically violent at times. If that turns people off of violence, that's fine, if it doesn't, that's fine.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 10:55:46 2014 No.5213763 >>5213597 fuck off to tumblr SJW shitlord

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:00:58 2014 No.5213777 >>5213763 >so assblasted by women and niggers you wont read blood meridian stay both beta and pleb

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:02:39 2014 No.5213780 >>5212097 Now this is what I come here for. Thanks Anon

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:24:34 2014 No.5213846 >>5213068 This is so assumptive. Who would even compare? Asimov? Clarke? Dick? I mean really, we're talking central to the western canon. It's a lofty position. I don't think there is any sci-fi writer that belongs on that list. Fite me irl

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:27:30 2014 No.5213857 File: 88 KB, 374x550, BLOOM.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5213448 I read that, but it's not objective. Not at all.I don't recognise the book I read in Bloom's comments.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:38:38 2014 No.5213906 >>5213454 This is some of the stupidest shit I've ever heard. Seriously. You can listen to rock alone, or Beethoven. This is so fucking dumb.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:39:38 2014 No.5213914 >>5213476 I can tell you: they write articles nobody reads every 6 months and battle depression because their lives are shit.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:46:12 2014 No.5213944 >>5211706 Holy fuck man you missed the point of Othello really, really hard

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:48:45 2014 No.5213957 >>5213944 there was no point. it was a dumb tragedy with no moral value

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:50:01 2014 No.5213961 >>5213957 >moral value top pleb

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:57:26 2014 No.5213993 >>5213957 What? You're chlorinating the gene pool, man. End yerself.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 11:58:18 2014 No.5213997 >>5213961 It's okay to be a retard, pleb.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 12:18:46 2014 No.5214089 >>5213997 Nice one, Captain Moral Value.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 17:37:08 2014 No.5215334 File: 487 KB, 900x900, 1405629534067.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5213057 >Whitman was considered an evil macho because he sported a beard and sat with his family, an obvious patriarch from hell.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 17:50:06 2014 No.5215418 >>5211896 >time bias That's because of the book you fucking retard. It's centered around the ages vico recognized an predicted and he explains exactly why he skipped greeks and romans.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 18:12:31 2014 No.5215554 >>5212803 Of those at least Rabelais is definitely a must. And I'm not French.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 19:27:50 2014 No.5215954

>>5213068
>What I personally think of sci-fi doesn't matter but to completely ignore it seems to me evidence that Bloom is better at recognising classics that have been recognised as classics by countless others before than spotting contemporary relevance.

well, that is what is ment by a cannon, so yes.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 19:44:37 2014 No.5216050 >Jane Austen >Emily Dickinson >George Eliot >Virginia Woolf >central to anything except "much feelings" What a load of feminist bs

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 19:50:31 2014 No.5216086 >>5216050 >I haven't read the authors I'm criticizing

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 20:27:26 2014 No.5216276 >>5213139 Kabbalah and Criticism would be the first stop.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 21:00:09 2014 No.5216418 >>5212729 Burden of proof is on you.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 21:40:50 2014 No.5216573 >>5211541 >Eliot not knowing T. S. Eliot pleb detected

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 21:43:40 2014 No.5216586 >>5213076 Bloom would include Faulkner way before McCarthy.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 21:45:35 2014 No.5216597 >>5211516 >multiple playwrights Bloom get's something that /lit/ refuses to.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 21:48:27 2014 No.5216607 >>5216418 I'm not that guy but I found a review that doesn't call Dostoevsky a masterpiece: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/6656-kid-a/ Is that what you're looking for?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 21:52:41 2014 No.5216621 >>5213906 Rock is nowhere near as dense or aesthetic as Beethoven. There's nothing to read in rock. It's fun and I like it, but I won't delude myself that I'm doing something valuable by listening to Led Zeppelin instead of the 9th symphony.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 21:58:48 2014 No.5216637 >Walth Whitman >Pablo Neruda >Borges Fuck that list

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 22:02:18 2014 No.5216649 File: 205 KB, 1638x770, 20sonnetosdeamor.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5216637 Why

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 22:04:19 2014 No.5216656 >>5216637 >>Borges Kill yourself. Borges is inexhaustible.

Anonymous Wed Jul 30 22:08:31 2014 No.5216666

>>5216649
Oh, I didn't mean to put Walt Whitman there.
But, Neruda and Borges were both opportunistic arrogants.

>>5216656
Borges is exactly what literature should not be. He just switches words and tries to be as "Deep" and "Mathematical" - whatever is that supposed to mean - as possible, without little to no effort in contributing to literature. Talking about it does not make it more interesting.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 22:11:38 2014 No.5216672 >>5216621 >he thinks he's doing something "valuable" by listening to the 9th symphony Is this how hipsters were conned into accepting low wage jobs with Bachelor's degrees?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 22:12:28 2014 No.5216678 >>5216666 First of all nice quads. >Neruda and Borges were both opportunistic arrogants. Expand on this please.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 22:13:43 2014 No.5216679 >>5216672 >conflating the metaphysical with the material Is this how engineers were conned into to thinking their rusting machines matter?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 22:27:59 2014 No.5216727 >>5216679 >metaphysical value Ah, so that's how. Were you offered a metaphysical 401K upon hiring?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 22:31:49 2014 No.5216741 >>5216727 My company is good to its workers.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 23:53:41 2014 No.5217019 >samuel johnson mah nigga

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 30 23:57:17 2014 No.5217042 >no cicero fuck this shit

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 31 00:49:41 2014 No.5217187 >>5216666 >But, Neruda and Borges were both opportunistic arrogants. please stop talking out your ass

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 31 00:56:37 2014 No.5217208 >>5212621 >>5212661 >>5212675 one sad retarded anon said that and was called out on his bullshit

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 31 00:57:30 2014 No.5217210 Does /lit/ like Harold Bloom? He's a massive Neocon...

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 31 01:00:49 2014 No.5217218 >>5211542 I never saw anything special about him either. He is good, but people like Pessoa are leagues above hi.. Neruda is the Drummond of spaniards

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 31 01:01:34 2014 No.5217221 >>5213516 >A little kid is vastly more likely to develop a sense of himself by engaging with [insert aspect of popular culture here] than by reading some famous dead poet he won't even comprehend. I think you missed the point

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 31 01:03:09 2014 No.5217225 >>5211621 Okay, I agree with you with your hatred for Austen, but don't say anyone else on that list. Dickens is on that list, and he only has one semi-mediocre book. He's the go to quasi-intellectual author.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 31 01:03:43 2014 No.5217230 >>5217210 >Does /lit/ like Harold Bloom? He's a massive Neocon... 1. he's not 2. what's wrong with neocon

Anonymous Thu Jul 31 01:06:57 2014 No.5217245

>>5211621
>Things that aren't about rich people having tea parties.

You clearly haven't read her because that is the popular stereotype of her books, but in actuality they aren't like that at all. They ARE about real struggles and it doesn't take a genius to see that.

and if you have a problem with rich people having tea parties then you might as well knock off Woolf and Proust from the list since they're more honestly in that vein

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