A review by quintusmarcus
The Anatomy of Influence: Literature as a Way of Life by Harold Bloom
4.0
Decades after the publication of "The Anxiety of Influence", Harold Bloom has returned to his favorite them with a new collection of essays. Although he cover a range of English poetry from Shakespeare to the modern poets Mark Strand and John Ashbery, almost half of the book concerns Shakespeare. Identifying Shakespeare as "the Founder", Bloom works through Marlowe's influence on Shakespeare, and then traces Shakespeare's influence through writers from Milton to Joyce. The later chapters of the book take up the theme of America, beginning with Emerson's influence on Whitman, and then tracing Whitman's influence down through Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane, and from them to the modern generation of Strand, Ashbery, W.S. Merwin, and others.
For Bloom, influence is everything. All works are connected to each other by a strand of influence, a strand that ties the works together in an endless and ever growing continuum of thought. Of course, this means that works that fall outside the orbit of his chosen authors may as well not exist, at least to him. But his approach provides a critical method for tracing the development of thought an style across long reaches of time, and he uses his techniques to argue effectively for the primacy of Shakespeare and Whitman in English and American poetry.
A first reading of this book is only a beginning. I was able to see the major themes, take note of Bloom's many references, and assemble a list for future reading (both critics and texts). The book is so rich and dense, I really could not do more than that. Working through Bloom's analysis and all the associated texts will keep me occupied for quite some time.
For Bloom, influence is everything. All works are connected to each other by a strand of influence, a strand that ties the works together in an endless and ever growing continuum of thought. Of course, this means that works that fall outside the orbit of his chosen authors may as well not exist, at least to him. But his approach provides a critical method for tracing the development of thought an style across long reaches of time, and he uses his techniques to argue effectively for the primacy of Shakespeare and Whitman in English and American poetry.
A first reading of this book is only a beginning. I was able to see the major themes, take note of Bloom's many references, and assemble a list for future reading (both critics and texts). The book is so rich and dense, I really could not do more than that. Working through Bloom's analysis and all the associated texts will keep me occupied for quite some time.