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Paperback The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages Book

ISBN: 1573225142

ISBN13: 9781573225144

The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages

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Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD

"Heroically brave, formidably learned... The Western Canon is a passionate demonstration of why some writers have triumphantly escaped the oblivion in which time buries almost all human effort. It inspires hope... that what humanity has long cherished, posterity will also." -The New York Times Book Review

Literary critic Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is more than a required reading list -- it is a vision. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the great works of the western literary tradition and essential writers of the ages: the Western Canon. Harold Bloom's book, much-discussed and praised in publications as diverse as The Economist and Entertainment Weekly, offers a dazzling display of erudition mixed with passion. For years to come it will serve as an inspiration to return to the joys of reading our literary tradition offers us.

Customer Reviews

6 customer ratings | 5 reviews

Rated 5 stars
Bloom Almighty

I first read this book about nine or so years ago, and I reread parts of it almost every day. So why am I just now getting around to reviewing it? Well for one thing I didn't have internet access when I bought it. But, I figured it's time to give the master his due. This book has had the greatest influence on me of any book I have read in recent memory, for many reasons. To begin with, Bloom's erudition is staggering. ...

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Rated 5 stars
Aesthetic Idolatry

Bloom adopted Giambattista Vico's cyclical theory of history for organization of the western canon. Vico proposed that history is divided into three ages: an age of gods, an age of heroes, and an age of men followed by a chaos out of which a new historical cycle will begin. After his introductory Elegy for the Canon, Bloom skips the Theocratic Age, proceeding to the Aristocratic Age, the Democratic Age, the Chaotic Age,...

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Rated 5 stars
Worth Anyone's Consideration

Harold Bloom has been, arguably, the world's best reader, the most wide-ranging and the most retentive. Some people believe his book, The Western Canon, verges on the audacious since Bloom dares to list what Western literary works are canonical as well as what ones will be.While the appendices, with their lists of books, are the section of The Western Canon that provokes the most argument, these take up relatively few of...

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Rated 5 stars
Immortal Literature versus Political Academia

Harold Bloom's book The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages is centered around the concept of a literary canon, which Bloom describes as "what has been preserved out of what has been written." The term canon is religious in origin, initially referring to wisdom literature chosen for inclusion into Scripture by the Christian Church. Bloom's book addresses the preservation issue, that is, how do we choose...

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Rated 5 stars
It inspired this "general reader" to start reading the canon

Since I am one of the "general readers" to whom Harold Bloom directed The Western Canon, I am not qualified to judge his critical opinions. All I can say is that Mr. Bloom's descriptions of canonical works made these works and their authors sound so rewarding that I began to read them. As soon as I read the chapter on George Eliot, I had to read Middlemarch. As soon as I read Mr. Bloom's description of Jane Austen's Persuasion,...

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