The Western canon
the books and school of the ages
by Harold Bloom · first published 1994
43% recommend57% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Bloom's guide to the literary canon weighs which books deserve limited reading time. Its appendix list works as a reading map, and the critical discussion rewards close attention.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of the aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon. Shakespeare has become the touchstone for all writers who come before and after him, whether playwrights poets or storytellers. In the crea
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…someone is dead they can no longer be hurt by anything bad said about them. Defamation law also follows the same principle. Not that I want to speak ill of Harold Bloom. I only knew him through reading The Western Canon, which I found a very rewarding read, and for his disdain for the Harry Potter mania, where I felt the same way.
on “Harold Bloom Has Died” ↗…Probably get Spivak. Et c. This might get tougher as you approach a field's state-of-the-art, but by then "what to read next" will often come from a journal, not a book. Literature and verse? Harold Bloom's western canon list, whatever its faults, is pretty damn good and could keep one busy for a lifetime. If you want to mix in more works by e.g. women or more asian works or whatever, there are very good lists for that,…
on “Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years” ↗The Bible. Harold Bloom's "Western Canon", Knausgaard's "Min Kamp", "The World According to Garp", Robertson Davies Deptford Triology, "Anna Karenina", "Consilience of Knowledge", "House of Leaves" "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" All these…
on “Ask HN: What is the most influential not-technology book(s) you have ever read?” ↗The problem that Harold Bloom frames in his 1994 The Western Canon is that with a finite amount of time to read, we ought to choose wisely. A good literary critic helps with that, and The Western Canon is a great example. https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/136-9956209-9412407?...
on “The Novelist’s Complicity” ↗…"The end of Finnegans Wake, the monologue of the dying Anna Livia-mother, wife, and river-is frequently and rightly esteemed by critics as the most beautiful passage in all of Joyce."— Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: Joyce's Agon with Shakespeare.
on “What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)” ↗It's caught some shit over the years, but it's hard to go wrong picking almost anything off Bloom's (IIRC somewhat reluctantly-compiled, at the request of the publisher) list from the appendices of The Western Canon. There's another pretty good one, that includes more science writing and such, at the end of Adler's How to Read a Book. Bloom's: http://sonic.net/~rteeter/grtbloom.html Adler's: http://sonic.net/~rteeter/grtadler.html…
on “See how many classic books you can read in 2023 with just 20 minutes a day” ↗This is all well and good, really -- I love 'the classics' to whatever extent that's an agreed upon list (Harold Bloom's the Western Canon (1994), probably its most explicit recent defense, had a list of essential books that was highly controversial and admittedly personal). But I'm concerned that not enough people here have heard the counter-arguments.…
on “Why Read Classic Books?” ↗Bloom's "The Western Canon" tries to answer this question. https://www.openculture.com/2014/01/harold-bloom-creates-a-m...
on “Howard University’s removal of classics is a spiritual catastrophe” ↗Whatever its faults, most of the works in Bloom's list at the end of The Western Canon are probably very much worthwhile, yet appreciating them could occupy more than a lifetime for anyone whose job is not reading literature, even if other pastimes be largely avoided. And it's mostly limited…
on “Read Fewer Books” ↗…reading widely and variously across a spectrum of great minds, you will become much richer in knowledge and in your means of expression. Harold Bloom is probably the best-known modern proponent of a Western canon and his list is large and varied, as chronicled here: http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbloom.html. A pretty good overview of "great books" lists (Western and Eastern) also appears here: http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtintro.html.
on “Becoming "well read"” ↗…obsessed with typography or copy would probably enjoy this book because Crowley seems to always pick the 'perfect' word or phrase. Outside validation - "Little, Big" appears in Harold Bloom's well-regarded Western Canon.
on “Ask HN: Best book you read in 2010 and briefly why” ↗…was an anecdote (and anecdotes are fine) but the question is empirical and there's probably solid research on it. Anyway, all statistics are stereotyping. As far as the article goes, Harold Bloom (the western canon guy who died a while back) argued that gay and bi people are significantly overrepresented among great writers and poets. I'm not sure if he had a theory as to why.
on “Gay men earn undergraduate and graduate degrees at the highest rate in the US” ↗Here I am despairing at the 90-95% of Bloom’s Western Canon list that I bet I’d love and find moving and sublime, and would each form a new little piece of me, but am definitely never going to get to, and that’s not even close to a list of all the excellent books…
on “I Went from Reading 40 Books a Year to Reading 0” ↗…rare breed among American writers in that he was an accomplished science fiction and fantasy writer who was also recognized by the mainstream establishment. Harold Bloom included Little, Big in his "The Western Canon", for example. I've not read the later Crowley works, but The Deep, Engine Summer, and Little, Big are all among my favorite books.
on “John Crowley Has Died” ↗