No poem, not even Shakespeare or Milton or Chaucer, is ever strong enough to totally exclude every crucial precursor text or poem.

Quote by Harold Bloom

Topics: Harold Bloom Quotes

The world gets older, without getting either better or worse and so does literature. But...

The world gets older, without getting either better or worse and so does literature. But...

I take it that a successful therapy is an oxymoron.

I take it that a successful therapy is an oxymoron.

Sometimes one succeeds, sometimes one fails.

Sometimes one succeeds, sometimes one fails.

If I were to sum up the negative reactions to my work, I think there...

If I were to sum up the negative reactions to my work, I think there...

The world does not get to be a better or a worse place; it just...

The world does not get to be a better or a worse place; it just...

Shakespeare will not make us better, and he will not make us worse, but he...

Shakespeare will not make us better, and he will not make us worse, but he...

In fact, it is Shakespeare who gives us the map of the mind. It is...

In fact, it is Shakespeare who gives us the map of the mind. It is...

Shakespeare is universal.

Shakespeare is universal.

I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I...

I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I...

What matters in literature in the end is surely the idiosyncratic, the individual, the flavor...

What matters in literature in the end is surely the idiosyncratic, the individual, the flavor...

All that a critic, as critic, can give poets is the deadly encouragement that never...

All that a critic, as critic, can give poets is the deadly encouragement that never...

I don't believe in myths of decline or myths of progress, even as regards the...

I don't believe in myths of decline or myths of progress, even as regards the...

I think Freud is about contamination, but I think that is something he learned from...

I think Freud is about contamination, but I think that is something he learned from...

What I think I have in common with the school of deconstruction is the mode...

What I think I have in common with the school of deconstruction is the mode...

I would say that there is no future for literary studies as such in the...

I would say that there is no future for literary studies as such in the...

In the finest critics one hears the full cry of the human. They tell one...

In the finest critics one hears the full cry of the human. They tell one...

What matters in literature in the end is surely the idiosyncratic, the individual, the flavor...

What matters in literature in the end is surely the idiosyncratic, the individual, the flavor...

But in the end, in the end one is alone. We are all of us...

But in the end, in the end one is alone. We are all of us...

Indeed the three prophecies about the death of individual art are, in their different ways,...

Indeed the three prophecies about the death of individual art are, in their different ways,...

Criticism in the universities, I'll have to admit, has entered a phase where I am...

Criticism in the universities, I'll have to admit, has entered a phase where I am...