Review article
https://doi.org/10.29162/ANAFORA.v12i2.9
Harold Bloom and the Crisis in Literature
Krešimir Šimić
orcid.org/0000-0002-0114-372X
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek, Croatia
Robert Stubičar
Abstract
This paper presents one of the greatest American literary critics and theoreticians of the 20th century, Harold Bloom, and his thoughts on literature as a civilizational attainment under the attack of modern literary movements. As a disciple of Gnosticism, Bloom was convinced that post-structuralist anti-humanist tendencies are the culprit of degenerative processes in literature. Bloom calls such movements the “School of Resentment” and the “New Cynicism” and believes that the concepts of literary canon and authorship are struggling for survival. He identifies Marxist literary criticism, African-American studies, New Historicism, feminist criticism and post-structuralism as the main causes of the crisis of literature, singling out Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault as central figures. In response, Bloom writes his monumental work The Western Canon, defending the literary canon and the concept of authorship. This paper focuses on Bloom’s understanding of the crisis in literature and his struggle for the preservation of aesthetic value, the canon and authorship.
Keywords
Harold Bloom, school of resentment, deconstruction, literary crisis, canon, authorship
Hrčak ID:
342962
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2025.
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