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Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism.
Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of the aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon. Shakespeare has become the touchstone for all writers who come before and after him, whether playwrights poets or storytellers. In the creation of character, Bloom maintains, Shakespeare has no true precursor and has left no one after him untouched.
Milton, Samuel Johnson, Goethe, Ibsen, Joyce, and Beckett were all indebted to him; Tolstoy and Freud rebelled against him; and Dante, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens, Whitman, Dickinson, Proust, the modern Hispanic and Portuguese writers Borges, Neruda, and Pessoa are exquisite examples of how canonical writing is born of an originality fused with tradition. Bloom concludes this provocative, trenchant work with a complete list of essential writers and books - his vision of the Canon.
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Subjects
Canon (Literature), Literature, History and criticism, Religious aspects of Literature, Religious aspects, Littérature, Literatura, Letterkunde, Canon, Histoire et critique, Historia y crítica, Chefs-d'œuvre (Littérature), Long Now Manual for Civilization, New York Times reviewed, Literature, history and criticism, Books and readingShowing 5 featured editions. View all 5 editions?
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1
The Western Canon: Library Edition
January 2000, Blackstone Audiobooks
Audio Cassette
in English
- Unabridged edition
0786111100 9780786111107
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2
The Western canon: the books and school of the ages
1995, Riverhead Books, Riverhead Trade
in English
- 1st Riverhead ed.
1573225142 9781573225144
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3
The Western canon: the books and school of the ages
1995, Macmillan
in English
0333648137 9780333648131
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5
The Western canon: the books and school of the ages
1994, Harcourt Brace
in English
- 1st ed.
0151957479 9780151957477
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Edition Notes
Originally published: Harcourt Brace & Company 1994.
Includes index.
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- Created November 7, 2008
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August 19, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
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