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I am wondering if anyone has read "The Western Canon" by Harold Bloom. I am try to get through the first chapter An Elegy of the Canon and am finding his writing style quite difficult to follow. I am hoping that someone can shed some light. It can can be found here: http://mrbauld.com/elegy1.html
Thanks.
Why are you reading it?
I have the book but never finished reading it. I really like his writing, but that's not to say that I may like what he writes. I love his treatment of feminist critics, Marxist critics, etc. Good for a laugh. It seems Bloom sometimes rambles on in The Western Canon. I hear that he's an elitist. He turned down Oprah Winfrey's invitation to her show. Oprah has that Midas touch, and he would have been set for life.
I like his Anxiety of Influence. Interesting theory.
I've never read it cover to cover, but I've gone through some of the chapters and thought that they were fantastic. From memory, the chapters on Dickinson, Joyce, Proust and Tolstoy were outstanding. I remember his readings of Dickinson taking my breath away the first time I read them; they changed completely how I thought of her as a poet. It's probably his best work for the public - the Shakespeare book was a bit repetitive.
What exactly are you struggling with? 'An Elegy...' is basically the heart of Bloom: that politically/racially/gender motivated studies of literature are useless and that the author's own background/sexuality/race etc should have no bearing on how their work is judged. He's lamenting the fact that this is not the norm (though really it is - he can be a bit hyperbolic when he feels threatened) and that deep reading is (supposedly) dead.
I need to give a presentation on Harold Bloom and his theories for a grade 12 english presentation.
Where did you get that information from about him turning down Oprah? I did a google search and I found a NY Times article about the time Franzen turned down Oprah:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Doom
Quote:
Even some defenders of that high-art literary tradition took Mr. Franzen to task. The critic Harold Bloom said he would be ''honored'' to be invited by Ms. Winfrey. ''It does seem a little invidious of him to want to have it both ways, to want the benefits of it and not jeopardize his high aesthetic standing,'' he said.
Western Canon is when he was getting senile, not much good for theory, but really, it does not help much if you find his text difficulty. His references are Freud, Jewish texts, Shakespeare... Perhaps the book about Shakespeare is the easier way, since Bloom ends making Shakespeare the center of the universe...Quote:
Originally Posted by echou
jcamilo, i would be interested in your opinion after you finish Western Cannon. If you decide to read, you will indeed be an expert on Harold Bloom and likely on a lot of other things as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
I have read it already, but really, it barelly touches Bloom theories. It is more a couple of essays where he gives his opinion guided for his notion of literature. Bloom excells at some authors, it is not that good with a few others.
Western Cannon does not make anyone an specialist even on Bloom. It is too generic, more like a small encyclopedia about a handfull of relevant authors. The english writers and Proust are his domain, so those are the best texts. He knows what he talks about. But when he goes out of it (Tolstoy for example, I think his anti-Dostoieviskian is too blatant to make a good view of the russians of XIX century. It is pretty obvious it is a way to adjust russian literature view on the Shakespearean's anxiety) he is not that good.
Jcamilo maybe we r reading different western canons. Bloom is a great admirer of Dostoevfsky.
No, he is not a great admirer. If he was, he would have split the chapter between Tolstoy and Dostoievisky, because in the end, that is XIX russian literature second half. He cannt deny Dostoievisky, but just like Poe, he does not upheld him (specially because Dostoievisky make Freud useless in terms of literary merit to explain the psychological twist of XX century novels).
He is a great admirer of Proust, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Wordsworth... but Dostoievisky? He reckonizes the genius but cannt touch it with a stick.
Do you have a reference to this medical diagnosis?Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Just ignore these "it's a bad book" comments, echou. It's a well respected book, just look at the quotes from the luminaries on the cover! And as you are doing it in class your teacher must like it... he won't appreciate it if you put in a paper saying "Bloom is senile...", that's a guaranteed F...
It must be quite hard going for a 12th grader, though. Just think of it as one of your hardest textbooks and go through it *slowly*. Post questions here on each point you get stuck on.
Yes, it is called white hair.
You are seriously ignoring comentaries in the cover means square rat-***? It is just commun editiorial process to select friends to do it. It is not a text book, academic book, it is just a book, not deep or special.
'Senile' is an odd word to use, considering the guy has one of the most famous memories in the world. Bloom without question does admire Dostoevsky, though he definitely sees Tolstoy as the greater writer - just as basically every major literary figure has for the past 100+ years.
Also, of course Bloom rejects Poe! The only people ever not to reject Poe were the French! Have you read Poe? He's the most appalling-jingly-jangly-unintentially hilarious poet in history.
meh, The book was written in a different context, with the assumption that the "school of resentment" was a coherent movement and would win. In truth, it was just a reformatting of academic writing that sought to bring more things to the table - he saw it as the future, but it didn't stick. By 2010 it would seem that though one is able to discuss more things in depth, ultimately literary readings are far more along the lines of Bloom than people would imagine.
As for the influence of the book though, people totally misread it when it was written, and now read it and think it applies to today's context, when even Bloom has moved beyond it. Yet there are still Bloom-idolaters amongst us who cannot fathom a world without the school of resentment fighting against everything good and pure about literature.
I wont mention that senile means aged, he is obviously old, there is nothing new on his works except his jewish nationalism and somehow, religious devotion to Shakespeare. But Dostoievisky and Tolstoy? They are pratically even, there is several major literary figures equating both or praising Brothers K or Crime and Punishement over Anna Karenina or War and Peace that is not even fun argue this kind of absolute absurd.
Poe is easily the most influential writer of United States and in poetry, almost only Whitman can make up for him. Repeating Emerson jiggle remarks about Poe does not help - No crap poet would be fundamental for Pessoa, Borges, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarme, Verlaine, Machado de Assis, Ruben Dario and a few others. And I am not talking about his critical essays or Short stories. Bloom mistake is typical and your ressort similar... Anglo-saxon bias seems to acknowledge only french as the rest of the world. It is exotic.
'Old' on its own is hardly a criticism.
No one in the english speaking world who reads poetry regards Poe as anything near good. Eliot devoted an essay to trying to figure out what Beaudelaire, Valery and Mallarme saw there. The point is that no one who was fluent in English and deeply read in English poetry would see Poe as more than a joke.
I like Doestevsky and he has been mostly admired. But I can't think of any major writer that has equated him to Tolstoy. And there have been more than a few (Joyce and Nabokov most obviously) that have dismissed him. Who has ever rejected Tolstoy?
Quote:
Originally Posted by conartist
At the same time, Poe is the most read English poet in America I would wager. He is in every classroom, and even on the Simpsons - what other poet has benefited like he? The question of appeal and influence cannot be ignored - simply put, Poe is very much the American poet, and that is not deniable.
I would think Shakespeare would be the most read poet in America, but Poe certanly seems to be the most prominent American poet in American culture. However, considering American poets of the last century or so, with regard to Poe and Walt Whitman, you have Frost, Elizabeth Bishop and maybe a few others who don't seem to have cared much for either; then there are Eliot, Pound, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane and John Ashberry, all of whom were hugely influenced by Whitman and didn't care at all for Poe. Who came out of Poe? Is there a single strong English verse writer with any relation to him?
What's your Erdos number? Eliot and Pound very much read French Symbolism, which ate Poe up like pie. Eliot himself mentioned how at the back of everything there is a trace of Poe. I don't know what you are talking about in terms of lack of influence on those poets.Quote:
Originally Posted by conartist
Beyond that too, modern poets reading Latin American and Southern European poets hit Poe too, as JCamilo has stated. Where is your historical basis?
In terms of modern poetry anyway, things aren't so clear, with the exception really of "big name American poets" most poets have rather eccentric patterns of influence, from Anne Carson's unknown Greek and Latin authors, to Haydon's Baha'i and Japanese influences, to Geoffrey Hill's intense European historicism and catholicism. Simply put, you cannot graph so easily influence, especially in a multi-lingual world - most poets now are at least bilingual, and read widely in the literature of more than one tradition.
Even music has gone through the effect, from jazz meditations on Chinese themes, to Martial Arts Soundtracks with Western motifs, there is a little trace of everything everywhere if you learn how the grid connects.
And don't get me wrong, I do not care for Poe's poetry either.
It is not. It is a fact.Quote:
Originally Posted by conartist
Longfellow, diplomatically or not, called Poe a genius. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote compliments to him and his Raven. And the most amazing thing, all those authors I mentioned were fluent in english, read english poetry - and more important, poetry from other countries as well, as english is just a small dot in the ocean - so, it is a bit silly trying to move the goal higher and ignoring those guys knew english well. So did Paul Valéry (whom I forgot), Nabokov, Chesterton, Robert Louis Stevenson.Quote:
No one in the english speaking world who reads poetry regards Poe as anything near good. Eliot devoted an essay to trying to figure out what Beaudelaire, Valery and Mallarme saw there. The point is that no one who was fluent in English and deeply read in English poetry would see Poe as more than a joke.
And Eliot said many things about Poe. Praised his genius, but mostly: in the same essay he mentions a educated reader (which can be himself) remember and was enchanted by a few of Poe poems. He do repeat it latter. He also defend Poe from a critic, claiming the same critic had not seen poe poetic originality, and I doubt he would consider mediocre or a jinggle writer the poet who was a major influence of symbolism (that Eliot could not see why, is irrelevant), the most important movement after romantism (as Eliot says) and that was very improtant influence (the movement) to eliot.
Robert Frost named Poe was the first poet he read all poems, wrote early pieces resembling Poe's poems.
Bloom himself, just like he avoids Dostoievisky but reckonizes the genius, list Poem Poems and Eureka in the canon and compared Poe capacity to go from bad to good easily with one of the bible authors. So, English is not a problem. Poe is undenyable.
Borges Despised Tolstoy. Latin American literature has a strong tendecy towards Tolstoy. E.M.Foster equated both (Brothers k is often strongly praised, today stronger than Tolstoy).Quote:
I like Doestevsky and he has been mostly admired. But I can't think of any major writer that has equated him to Tolstoy. And there have been more than a few (Joyce and Nabokov most obviously) that have dismissed him. Who has ever rejected Tolstoy?
Joyce dismissed who? He said Dostoievisky was a major influence for his and all moderm prose.
Plus it is a bit complicated when it is Poe, because his heavy language that slips or is bullseye as easily is the same on principle of his tales. Baudelaire justify more his liking from Poe (I must point, Baudelaire is a much better poet than Poe) on Poe's overall production. His tales and criticism go to Russia (Dostoievisky and Tchekhov), Japan (Up for you, but Tanizaki and Akutugawa are poesque and anti-poesque, when they are western like and anti-western), Kafka knew poe, a bit beyond the south-american/southern europe side...Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Much of Bloom's analysis is a little iffy. I think he overestimates the importance of Wallace Stevens because he was a personal friend. He also overestimates his anxiety of influence theory, which has a grain of truth in it, past all reasonable bounds. I think he mentioned on the Charlie Rose Show that he thought Hadji Murat was Tolstoy's best book and that no other writer but Shakespeare could have written Tom o' Bedlam. He also claimed female authorship of The Book of Job, which I don't see at all. He makes these leaps, from small grains of data, which I don't believe are supportable.
That because you havent seen his book on Yaweh and Jesus. It is insane and even sionist. According to him there was no influence of early jewish texts, as if it poped from the mind of lord almithy, he ignores Yaweh early versions, he is anti-islamic (he mentions a research that shows arabians do not approve suicid-bombers, just to say: of course they do!, because it would satisfy his notion that the Quran was inferior to old testament books because it had an active Yaweh, but only interessed on death)....
What do you expect from someone who reads Freud like his god? Seriously, all people who trust Freud as a sort of science, or actually a doctor need to examine their readings.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Either way, my quibble is with the notion of Western canon in itself - generally it is the Western European Canon, which, despite his great fight against resentment, essentially begins with Christian self-moralizing and justified isolation from a far more sophisticated Muslim world. The first Canon of Western literature is Dante, not Homer, as Homer was not traditionally in the place of the West - but rather, survived away from the West - Virgil is the closest to an early predecessor, since he at least wrote in Latin, and survived into the formation of "western society" - in general, there was a great communication of civilization from Rome to Han China which included cultural exchanges - these went on all the way until around the 14th century, when, while still there, they greatly diminished. Simply put, it was the west that created its idea of "Western literature" and the "Western literary tradition". IT cut itself off, because those heathens simply are heathens, and to be ignored, and Bloom, rather ironically, perpetuates this resentment in his book, despite the fact that it fits with his "resentment" paradigm.
I rememeber hearing that from a professor many moons ago. If I recall, I might have googled it too, but I don't remember the details of what I found. He is an elitist though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
I see what you are saying about Homer. His original Greek texts were lost for a thousand years; so there's a gap there in the middle ages. But he was the major force of influence for the preceding millennium, as well as a major force for the last seven centuries after he was rediscovered. I don't know that you could honestly make the case for Dante over Homer since Dante was popularized by Boccaccio at the same time as he was reintroducing Homer to Italy. If I'm recalling this correctly, Dante was always venerated in Italy but he doesn't approach the kind of universal acclaim he's known for until the Romantic era. I seem to remember him being out of favor during the Enlightenment, when Homer was definitely in vogue. Voltaire even wrote against him at the time. Either way, it's hard to make a claim that Dante is more central to the western tradition when Homer has been around during all of the time that Dante has and quite a bit before him. Dante wasn't particularly influential during the Dark Ages, before he was born, either; though you may make a case for Virgil.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
But if we are going to talk about displaced texts reinserted into the canon we should really begin the conversation at Gilgamesh and Beowulf.
Oh, I meant in determining a Western tradition - Homer went two ways, we know, with Alexander, and Greek work in general was supported by Byzantines and Arabs when it was lost to the "West" - my choice of Dante is simply because he seems the first major major author who comes from a tradition that has separated itself from the rest of the world - for all the xenophobia in Herodotus, there is still an awareness and a dialog - there is no separate tradition, any more than there was during the Roman times when, though Roman authors were flourishing, Greek was still being read - by the time you hit Dante though, it's as if the world shuts off everything that doesn't follow a single trajectory, even if he can name Avicenna, who he more likely than not hadn't read.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
It's the same way how 19th century authors "discovered" that there was a huge amount of excellent literature written outside of Western Europe - oh my god, those Muslims can write! - just wait until you drag that all the way to the far reaches of the world - Japan essentially brought it to them when they defeated Russia at war, finally ending the idea of the West (I believe in the united States itself Japanese people won at court the distinction of being "white" people, though their literature didn't emerge well until the 1950s into the mass population, where Haiku became a dominant form. Likewise, Goethe reading Hafiz, or Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat show just how distant the tradition was until then, despite years of war between two neighbors, and even a conquering of the Iberian peninsula - in contrast, Chinese poetry essentially absorbed Persian influences in the 9th through 13th centuries despite being far more distant (at that point China didn't even extent into Sichuan) - why then did the West not feel a similar absorption of form - did it? the 1001 nights took long enough to make it to Europe (1704 in French).
I agree with all points made by all posters. :nod:
But you can pick arabian philosophy on Dante, his obvious influence of the bible, the cabalistic influence with this 4 textual meanings, the returning favor toward rhymes in italian poetry, St. Agostine, plato... Well, being closed is medieval but he still paints some zephyr sky. I would not say it is much different from germanic tradition, they move towards to england, which remains closed until chaucer bring italian influence back.
But I would say, there is a fantasy about the Shakespearean center of canon, because he and Dante shared the status during romantic ages (both not exactly as popular during enlightment), Virgil was easy the top of top, from the time he was alive to the romantic period he was the model of perfection and he shared with Cicer the model of philosopher, Ovid the model of perfect imperfection and one can say western tradition is the roman tradition, they define the bible, they split orient and ocident, etc.
But I can see, the whole idea of Western or a date is fictional. Only good sell out and not really something pratical, time and geography mixed in the end of the day.
There are more Muslims in the Divine Comedy than just Avicenna. Averroes, Siger of Brabant, and Saladin come in for a share of honor. Let us not forget that after the Muslim conquest there was an Islamic presence in Europe from the 8th century to the 15th, particularly in Spain. Venice was a major sea port which had regular commerce with the Muslim world. There have been numerous papers published about the indirect influence of Islam on the Divine Comedy, including speculation that he might have borrowed certain incidents from the "Kitab al Miraj."Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I think Dante himself makes an argument for Homer being the center of the canon in the Divine Comedy. Though he's gone he's not forgotten.
Just because they didn't have the text anymore doesn't mean they didn't know what was in it or the man's reputation in past ages. Petrarch even wrote a letter to Homer among his letters to famous dead people, so it shows his presence was felt, especially through Virgil. I might also remark that Ovid seems to have been more popular in the middle ages and during the Renaissance than Virgil was. To quote Petrarch himself from "An Excursion to Paris":Quote:
Homer is he, the poets' sovran lord;
Next, Horace comes, the keen satirical;
Ovid the third; and Lucan afterward.
It seems as though Virgil has always been more admired than liked.Quote:
But, lest you should be misled by my words, I hasten to add that there are no Virgils here, although many Ovids, so that you would say that the latter author was justified in his reliance upon his genius or the affection of posterity, when he placed at the end of his Metamorphoses that audacious prophecy where he ventures to claim that as far as the power of Rome shall extend, - nay, as far as the very name of Roman shall penetrate in a conquered world, - so widely shall his works be read by enthusiastic admirers.
I've found that most well read people seem to be aware of Firdawsi and the Mahabharata at least since the late 1700s. There was a flood of interest around the time that Goethe was imitating Hafiz with his West-Eastern Divan. This fascination with the far away and exotic seems to be an inspiration for such Enlightenment writings as Montesquieu's Persian Letters(1721). Sir William Jones takes up the torch later in the century translating all manner of Persian, Sanskrit, and Mandarin works, really doing some pioneering work in the area of Oriental Studies. However, there had been small chairs in language departments for Oriental Studies going back to the Renaissance, and I know that Christian missionaries were in those regions since at least the late 1500s. So you can't say we completely ignored them until the 19th century.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I don't know that you can claim there was no interest in Japanese or Eastern literature before the 40's. Ezra Pound came out with his translation of Li Po "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter" in 1915. He tried to translate some other Chinese poems, with varying success. Arthur Waley made a prominent career out of translating Chinese and Japanese literature around the same time. He publishes The Tale of Genji in the 20s and 30s. The Harvard Classics came out in 1910 and included the works of Confucius, the Koran, and the Bhagavad-Gita. The Chinese play The Orphan of Chao was popular in Voltaire's day. Arthur and Edmond Warner translated the complete Shahnameh into verse in 1905. Pearl S. Buck, a Nobel Prize winner, translated Water Margin into English in 1933. Rabindranath Tagor, an Indian, won the Nobel Prize in 1913. Ganguli translated the complete Mahabharata into English in 1896. Goethe talks about how much he admired Kalidasa, and you can see the influence of Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection on his Faust.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Before the 19th century, can you see the influence of European literature on China? What impact did Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, or Goethe make in those circles?
You can see both the Old Testament and the Bible, as well as sources of culture going as far back as Rome - the connection was there - as for Shakespeare, he is one author, in a rather isolationist tradition, as for Goethe, he is a late 18th / 19th century author, so his presence in China cannot be said to have been justified before the 19th century - as for Homer, who can say, though I know for a fact Greek culture, perhaps not literature directly, had influence on China itself. Fashion, art, music, poetics, food - all of that came, but not from Western Europe of course - hell, Russia was part of China for a hundred years - the last Mongol battles were well into the middle east, bringing the plague that was traditionally credited with kicking off the renaissance. That isn't to say that there wasn't ethnocentricity - but entertainment was highly multi-cultural way up until the Ming dynasty.
Well, Saladin the noble is more western than eastern. His fame decline and only him as the "great enemy" surived, being rediscovered much latter and a new cult to him was back on him land. Pretty much like the 1001 Nights. Albeit arabian, it is more western than eastern, in the sense their huge status is the history of western translations. In the end, like all generalization the notion of canon cann't survive critical analyses, but then, concepts like Canon, western culture, tradition cann't be trully limited, they somehow exist, but we affect only the center.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Dante basically build a canon. Let's be honest, everyone build a canon. That we agree Dante is there is a miracle. Even Dante and Shakespeare - if right now the format of literature is prose and novels, how they are more relevat to the canon than Cervantes (who by the way, had a more continuous reading than those two)? In a way, the formation of a canon can be interesting, we can pick details here and there, a good excuse for us to talk about Ovid without someone having a fit about it being out of place. But we will study the canon? I doubt so.Quote:
I think Dante himself makes an argument for Homer being the center of the canon in the Divine Comedy. Though he's gone he's not forgotten.
Virgil was always the perfect model. Let's face it, Ovid is much more interesting, he is richer - he do tell stories. Without him, the classic myths would have other format (so he basic build a canon of them), he goes more sentimental than Virgil (Dido or not), he is funnier, he is sensual, he wrote more (Or more has survived), he laughed of his own flaws. Everyone wanted to be like Virgil, but write like Ovid. Dante picks Virgil, but it is not Virgil who fills his path, it is Ovid, because Ovid who told all the stories of the many people Dante placed in hell. But it is Virgil, that Dante faces as superior. Maybe it is like Dante or Bocaccio or Dante and Petrarch. Not many Dantes (how much real epics like the Comedy?) ,but hundred of Petrarchs, who is basically the lyrical model for Sonnets in the world... Or many Bocaccios...Quote:
Just because they didn't have the text anymore doesn't mean they didn't know what was in it or the man's reputation in past ages. Petrarch even wrote a letter to Homer among his letters to famous dead people, so it shows his presence was felt, especially through Virgil. I might also remark that Ovid seems to have been more popular in the middle ages and during the Renaissance than Virgil was. To quote Petrarch himself from "An Excursion to Paris":
It seems as though Virgil has always been more admired than liked.
Camoes had a chinese lover, so he knew it. But lets face it, Japan killed occidentals going near it. Hindu-Indian influence was reasonably spread, budhists legends, gypsies, fables arrived on europe since middle age.Quote:
I've found that most well read people seem to be aware of Firdawsi and the Mahabharata at least since the late 1700s. There was a flood of interest around the time that Goethe was imitating Hafiz with his West-Eastern Divan. This fascination with the far away and exotic seems to be an inspiration for such Enlightenment writings as Montesquieu's Persian Letters(1721). Sir William Jones takes up the torch later in the century translating all manner of Persian, Sanskrit, and Mandarin works, really doing some pioneering work in the area of Oriental Studies. However, there had been small chairs in language departments for Oriental Studies going back to the Renaissance, and I know that Christian missionaries were in those regions since at least the late 1500s. So you can't say we completely ignored them until the 19th century.
I see only a problem with that is trying to imply the influence of China over europe (or vice-versa) is chronological. From the momment the Bible is accepted, there is a continual influence from orient... In the end, such questions is accepting the artificial aspect of the canon. For example, Garcia Lorca is clearly under muslim influence. His Duende is from there. He did not had influence from Muslims of XX century, but from Andaluzia past.
Maybe he means as constant editions. Of course, Japanese culture after II war spread on american strongly, like never before, but Voltaire admired chinese philosophy, Schopenhauer too and he also came with Budhism, which arrived on Tolstoy too. In Brazil, japanese hai-kai magazines were present in the early XX century and the modernists of the first two decades worked with it. I do not know which is the point: Africa is more western politically wise and only recently there is a movement to read african authors. Before it, what we had ? Arabian-african literature. And Africa is just there and here.Quote:
I don't know that you can claim there was no interest in Japanese or Eastern literature before the 40's. Ezra Pound came out with his translation of Li Po "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter" in 1915. He tried to translate some other Chinese poems, with varying success. Arthur Waley made a prominent career out of translating Chinese and Japanese literature around the same time. He publishes The Tale of Genji in the 20s and 30s. The Harvard Classics came out in 1910 and included the works of Confucius, the Koran, and the Bhagavad-Gita. The Chinese play The Orphan of Chao was popular in Voltaire's day. Arthur and Edmond Warner translated the complete Shahnameh into verse in 1905. Pearl S. Buck, a Nobel Prize winner, translated Water Margin into English in 1933. Rabindranath Tagor, an Indian, won the Nobel Prize in 1913. Ganguli translated the complete Mahabharata into English in 1896. Goethe talks about how much he admired Kalidasa, and you can see the influence of Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection on his Faust.
Off the top of my head I can't think of many major authors who wrote like Dante (excepting Chaucer) until Blake. At least they don't seem to be imitating the Divine Comedy. Maybe his other poems have more imitators, especially in Italian. What about it JBI?Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Boccaccio and Petrarch had an even larger effect on Chaucer what with Canterbury Tales being a reworked poetic version of the Decameron and him stealing sonnets out of Petrarch for Troilus and Criseyde. Everyone and their mother started writing sonnets after that and Boccaccio became the model for short stories and Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron. On the one hand, Dante popularizes Italian as a language for poetry, but on the other Boccaccio and Petrarch are the major humanists who kick off the Renaissance. All three are highly influential, but who doubts that Dante is the better writer?
Surely, the canon changes with time. But I think there is still some manner of constancy, at least for the very greatest works. So shouldn't we call the canon, that which is canonical which does not change? At this point, I think it would be very difficult to displace Homer, the Bible, and Shakespeare. Everything else may still be up for grabs.
I'm reminded of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great English critic. In his time, Pope was almost what Shakespeare is in ours. And Joseph Addison's play Cato was the wonder of a century. Johnson called Dr. John Arbuthnot the finest man of letters in his day, and who remembers him now? Who remembers Johnson? If you look back upon his Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, you will find a great many names which are no longer familiar. Of course, it can't be said that he left a single name of consequence out. This begs the question, in the creation of a canon, is it a graver sin to leave off a name of some worthy than to include one that may be unworthy?
Normally I'd agree with you, but Bloom gets positive comments from *really* heavy-hitters like Frank Kermode, A.S. Byatt, Cristopher Ricks, Malcolm Bradbury, James Wood, Peter Ackroyd... These are not "friends", these are the gatekeepers of literature. You can't dismiss Bloom's book with unsupported comments like "senile" or "not deep or special".Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
"Think he mentioned"? I doubt he said it was "Tolstoy's best book".Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
He praises it to the heights in "The Western Canon"- saying it's "the best story in the world" and his "personal touchstone for the sublime of prose fiction", and goes on to discuss it in some detail.
But "best book?"
I doubt he would say that... it's too short to compete with the "loose and baggy" magnificence of W&P and AK. In fact it usually comes with his six other short novels in a book that is still smaller than W&P!
Bloom is very good on Tostoy, he inspired me to read beyond "the two big books". The big problem about Tolstoy is his turn to extreme Christianity after AK, which put me off reading beyond AK. Bloom, thankfully, turned me back on to reading late Tolstoy - all the short novels are wonderful.
I'm reading Resurrection at the moment and I think Bloom is spot on when he says, "So powerful and sustained is Tolstoy's narrative gift that his sermonizing digressions do not disfigure his fiction much or render it tendentious."
If you want, you can see where he mentions it at the tail end of the interview he gave when The Western Canon came out. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/7132 Skip to about 19:35 in the video to where Charlie starts reading his list of 26 canonical authors and questions him directly about Hadji Murat. Bloom says something about it being important in light of modern tensions in Chechnya. I don't own a copy of The Western Canon and it's been years since I read anything out of it; so I can't quote you anything he says there.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
For the question addressed to me, Dante's metre is the Italian iambic pentameter or alexandrine though we credit Shakespeare and not the Earl of Surrey. There are traces elsewhere though, his tercets making there way into other places, such as Shelley.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Though, it can be said that epics in general lack imitators that succeed - Virgil has no imitator but translators, who is writing in the style of Milton? what about Homer? Surely Goethe's Faust has its imitators? I did read somewhere that there were Virgil-era rival epics, though none survived because of the prowess of Virgil - perhaps it is true. The only real writing in the style of is Pope following Dryden, and they are close, and yet so distant. Then again, Spenser plays with it a bit in the Faerie Queene, as he does with Virgil in the rest (book three in particular is a nice game with Ariosto, the most imitated of all the epic-poets arguably).
Gatekeeper? seriously that's a ridiculous notion, how can a single individual be a gatekeeper, much less they.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
As far as Virgil's successful imitators go there's Lucan's Pharsalia and Statius' Thebaid, both of which Dante applauds in the Divine Comedy: mentioning Lucan in the same tercet as he mentions Homer and Ovid, then making Statius a major character and guide through Purgatory. I think that Milton is writing after the style of Virgil. To a certain extent so are Tasso, Camoes, and Spenser. Petrarch, like Dante, credits much of his poetic language to Virgil, though his prose is based on Cicero. So Homer and Virgil definitely have imitators, and they usually happen to be the greatest writers of all time.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I'm not sure what you mean about Virgilian era epics not surviving. We don't have Ennius' Annals, which was the canonical Latin text before Virgil's Aeneid, but Horace and Ovid were both contemporary with Virgil and their work survives. We have Lucretius epic poem De Rerum Natura, Statius, and Lucan's works, of course. We have the texts of two crummy epic poems by Italicus and Flaccus.
I think you might be confusing them with the lost epics that filled out the rest of the Trojan story around the Iliad and the Odyssey: The Cypria, The Nosti, Telegony, etc. Virgil actually borrowed from them, especially for Book 2, to write the Aeneid. However, it's likely that these other epics weren't anything special since Hesiod lived and wrote at the same time as Homer and we have his epics (which is not to say that only the worst die out).
Come to think of it, Apollonius imitates Homer a bit in the Argonautica, which really deserves more love.
I don't know that I'd claim Ariosto as the most imitated of epic poets. Surely, Spenser, Tasso, and Milton may lay claim to him but each of them have greater fathers still, and who else uses him for a model?