#harold bloom

[dk-thrive]

The great poems, plays, novels, stories teach us how to go on living, even when submerged under forty fathoms of bother and distress. If you live ninety years you will be a battered survivor. Your own mistakes, accidents, failures at otherness beat you down. Rise up at dawn and read something that matters as soon as you can.

— Harold Bloom, How to Read and Why (Scribner, May 2000) (via The Hammock Papers)

[apocryphics]

Bloom

[napoleonyaoi]

In the summer of 2000, as the Harry Potter series was quickly becoming a global sensation, Yale critic Harold Bloom gave one of his most unpopular takes.

"Are millions and millions and millions of people wrong?

- I'm afraid so"

[garadinervi]

Ursula K. Le Guin, A Larger Reality, Edited and designed by Conner Bouchard-Roberts, WT043, Winter texts, Port Townsend, WA, 2025, Limited edition, Smyth-sewn paperback, Printed on recycled paper [Asterism Books, Seattle, WA]

With additional essays on Le Guin's thinking and craft by adrienne maree brown, Isabelle Stengers, Moe Bowstern, Lola Milholland, Nisi Shawl, David Naimon, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Margaret Killjoy, Julie Phillips, and Harold Bloom

Exhibition: A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin, Curated by Theo Downes-Le Guin, Oregon Contemporary, Portland, OR, October 31, 2025 – February 8, 2026

[tyger-land]

" 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝'𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐭, 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝, 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐭 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝, 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐢𝐦, 𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐣𝐚𝐳𝐳; 𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠, 𝐄𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧, 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐫, 𝐁𝐮𝐝 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥, 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐬, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥. 𝐈𝐟 𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐨, 𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲, 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐧'𝐭. 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐮𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐭 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬 𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠."

- Harold Bloom, from a 2007 interview with Chris Lydon. Photo: 1952 by Bob Willoughby.

[mysharona1987]

I still don’t know why everyone bitches about Joyce Carol Oates on twitter. She’s fun.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Harold Bloom at his most humane, commenting on Wallace Stevens’s “The Owl in the Sarcophagus”:

[majestativa]

Harold Bloom suggests that ‘otherness is the essence of the angels; but then it is our essence also’. The angel is one of the key symbols of women surrealists, because it brings together the ‘divine and human, the immanent and transcendent’. It is a symbol of hybridity and becoming which faces and reshapes history and tradition, in the artist’s own image.

— Mary Ann Caws, Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism, (2009)