bloom shakespeare the invention of the human

Bloom had secured Ivy League tenure by then, but intellectually he’d backed the wrong horse – his Freudian reading of literature had about as much relevance as phrenology. But as it turns out, by the 1980s, the French and the feminists and the post-structuralists were deconstructing and whatnot while Freud became increasingly debunked. By the 1970s, his “anxiety of influence” theory had made Bloom’s reputation, and Bloom probably thought he had the culture by the balls. This theory was elaborated from the late-1950s to the early-1970s, when a Freudian reading of literature was pretty much ala mode in American letters. There was always something of the legacy-monger about him, as follows: Once upon a time, an ambitious non-creative man of letters established himself in the literary firmament with a vast and complicated body of theory, the “anxiety of influence,” a quasi-Freudian concept whereby writers are primarily motivated by a frantic, anxious desire to overcome their elders (no doubt I am grossly oversimplifying a theory of terrifying complexity – I spent about seven minutes with the book in question about fifteen years ago, so I do not know much about it). To be fair about it, I am somewhat prejudiced against Bloom. A few weeks ago I decided to give it a try and found it to be a piece o’ cake, mostly. A couple years ago I found a copy dirt-cheap at some thrift store or another and its fat binding has glowered at me from the shelves since. Given Harold Bloom’s prodigious reputation, I was afraid of the thing, and so avoided it, figuring it to be fraught with lit theory of the densest sort. I dimly remember when this book came out (1998) how big and important and controversial it was supposed to be.

Bloom shakespeare the invention of the human