MEMBER BLOG TAG: harold bloom
| Friday, May 6, 2011 5:25PM | | | | Bloomerang | Tags: Harold Bloom, Kafka, letters, falling in love with literature
| | | "Let's get to the business at hand. I'm old, and I may collapse at any minute!" So says the critic Harold Bloom, settling into his chair with a portmanteau majesty. The very last event of the 2011 PEN World Voices Festival begins. I feel as if I've gotten lost on the set of a Woody Allen movie.
Maybe that's because the people seated with me in the Celeste Bartos Forum of the New York Public Library are well wedded to the word--and to their very own words. Also, everyone here appears to be a person of some importance to themselves. Except for me. Silent and self-skeptical, I am busy writing a letter. My letter is addressed to--but wait a little. We'll see . . . .
... | | | | | | | Sunday, May 1, 2011 8:40PM | | | | A CONVERSATION WITH HAROLD BLOOM | Tags: Literary taste, Western literary canon, literary criticism, Shakespeare's greatness: naturalistic characterizations. Walt Whitman's finest works, Ralph Waldo Emerson as American mentor, Edmund Wilson as inspiration, Dr. Samuel Johnson as role model for Harold Bloom, love of reading.
| | | | Yale University’s Sterling Professor of Humanities, author of many books of literary criticism and cultural analysis, Harold Bloom, was introduced and questioned by Paul Holdengraber to stimulate a conversation about Mr. Bloom's opinions and career. Holdengraber is curator of “LIVE from the NYPL, a Cognitive Theatre with a mission to provoke, engage, instigate, and agitate the mind.” The acoustics in the auditorium were poor, causing an echo-like reverberation that made it difficult to understand what the men were saying. Holdengraber's German accent and Harold Bloom's age and difficult speech, and habit of mumbling behind the hand supporting his chin, made it hard to understand their conversation. Most audience members, except for those in the very front rows near the stage, had difficulty getting all the... | | | | | |
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