| Sunday, May 1, 2011 8:40PM | | | | A CONVERSATION WITH HAROLD BLOOM | Posted By: Daniela Gioseffi
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| 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 words.I am reporting this complaint from many, not just surmising it. The conversation was far from lively, but all the same, Harold Bloom managed to say some interesting things that were quotable and memorable regarding his long career as a respected literary critic.
He still believes that William Shakespeare is the greatest writer of the Western World in terms of his naturalistic and varied characterization and strong personality portrayals. "Shakespeare invented us." Bloom once declared, defining invention as discovery. In other words, Bloom means to say that Shakespeare is such a profound creator of true to life characters that we discover ourselves, our humanity, our character flaws and traits within his works. Bloom believes, also, that Walt Whitman is the greatest poet of the Western world of the last two centuries. The poems of Whitman that he loves most are "Song of Myself, The Sleepers, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, and When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed." He believes that there is much of Whitman that is not worth reading and that Whitman's greatest period of writing occurred between 1855 and 1865. Most poets have only one great decade, he explained, in which their work is at the peak of their ability.
Bloom does not have much use for T.S. Eliot whom he seems to feel is an over rated writer and bigoted anti-semite. He also has little respect for the ideas of C.S. Lewis. I can't help but agree that he is correct in these assumptions and I applaud his ability to be a critic with strong convictions. He admits that as a literary critic, one cannot help but make enemies, and one cannot have the time in one life to read everything that perhaps one should, no matter how dedicated a reader one is.
Harold Bloom feels: "The solitary reader is an endowment that will survive everything. There will always be the solitary reader who wants to go into a corner somewhere to be alone with a book. The reader will survive. The internet is a great gray ocean in which one can drown unless one has an education." One has to have been a good reader and know history and culture to some degree in order to use the internet with discretion. One can retrieve information more rapidly than one can from hardcopy books, but without an education, one is not capable of sorting out the information found on the world wide web. He he should have quoted Sir John Falstaff: “Discretion is the better part of valor,” when diving into the internet. (Bloom did say earlier, that Falstaff represents life in Shakespeare’s works and Bloom does not care for moralizing over the character of Falstaff. “Falstaff is life!” Bloom declared.)
He also feels that though good teachers can help promote worthwhile learning, the student must have an innate desire and talent to learn and write well. Bloom believes that chanting poems to oneself, memorizing poems that one loves, and saying them aloud enriches the spirit and the intellect. Training the memory is an important part of training the mind, as memory is the only way we can know anything or synthesize new thoughts, ideas and creations from what we remember. The appalling condition of American culture today in the United States with its "proclivity for nonsense" is a sad phenomenon. Bloom seems to feel that the desire to be a deep reader is inborn, but can be nurtured from an early age."One needs to be as someone who has seen and heard everything before and is also seeing and hearing everything for the first time."
Bloom agreed with Holdengraber that "the role of the mother in society is for the child to be alone with the mother." In other words, the child needs the mother's protection, but needs to be allowed to discover things for her/himself, to explore the world and books, and develop self-reliance. Bloom believes that Ralph Waldo Emerson's ideal of self-reliance is an American spirituality that has been passed down through the years, an important American philosophy that declares that one must listen to the god within. "Listen to the god within and do your work, and by your work I will know you.” Bloom echoed Emerson. Also, he feels “You are not required to complete the work of your life, but neither are you free to stop doing it. Old age is a shipwreck. Don't bother trying to learn how to die, because when the time comes, you will know how," Bloom iterated. Since he is an aged man and not well, he seems to be thinking a good deal about death as witnessed by his recent book TILL I END MY SONG, his latest anthology of poems with commentary.
Harold Bloom has been ill and mentioned more than once or twice that he is an old and tired. It seems, from the way he talks, that he is expecting not to live much longer. His latest book, he said, begun in 2003 took seven years to finish because he fell ill during the writing of it. Generally, this reviewer felt that Holdengraber kept prodding Bloom to discuss things he did not wish to discuss, and leading him in directions that he did not wish to go. Bloom seems to have preferred to discuss his latest books rather than be questioned by Holdengraber, and he made various wry pronouncements that joked about his being questioned. He was, on the other hand, thrilled to hear a brief and rare recording of Walt Whitman reading verse that Holdengraber played for him, though he insisted on playing it so loud that it echoed and reverberated too much to be clearly understood. (Unfortunately, Holdengraber does not understand the poor acoustic quality of the magnificently stone-lined and domed room of the New York Public Library in which the conversation was held. He needs to be schooled in that problem and how to overcome it. Increasing volume only exacerbates the problem or reverberation.)
Generally, there was nothing greatly revelatory about the discussion, and it seemed that the two men were attempting to one-up one other rather as the conversation began, rather than have a truly edifying discussion. Bloom did say, however, that he has a feeling of sanctity about the great New York Public Library's Main Branch as one of the few great libraries left in the Western World. Bloom has written much about the “tyranny the screen,” and he feels that he doesn't want to rage against it any longer. There is no use to doing so at his age, he declared. He recognized Edmund Wilson as an inspiration, as well as Ruskin, whom he called "a master of regret," but feels he has attempted to follow in the steps of Dr. Samuel Johnson as a literary critic. I noted that nearly no women writers were mentioned by either conversant, though Bloom did briefly mention Ann Carson as a favorite poet of his.
Harold Bloom is a man that speaks his mind clearly, and with admirable wit and erudition. One wishes that Mr.Holdengraber would have gotten out of Bloom's way in the conversation, and allowed Bloom to go off on his own more, demonstrating his evident erudition and clever repartee without structuring questions in a somewhat controlling and demanding way. Bloom seemed at times disgruntled by Holdengraber's prodding, and Holdengraber seemed to want to show off his own reading and erudition and control the conversation more than he should have. Though some of Holdengraber's questions were intelligent, they did not allow for Bloom's free-wheeling intellect to navigate the conversation in interesting and inspiring ways as much as he could have if allowed more of his own control.
Daniela Gioseffi:
PEN AMERICAN CENTER Webpage:
http://www.pen.org/MemberProfile.php/prmProfileID/19901
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniela_Gioseffi
Editor/ Publisher http://www.PoetsUSA.com
The Poet and the Poem, Library of Congress Radio Show Webcast: Scroll down at: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/poetpoem.html
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