Word: bloomings
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Although his opinions have made Bloom, in his words, “the pariah of [his] profession for the last thirty years,” he sticks by his beliefs. He maintains that using gender, race, or any other personal characteristics of authors in evaluating the artistic merit or validity of their work is “a blasphemy against the arts…a horrible absurdity...
Noting that he has “limped off too many canonical battlefields,” Bloom insists that he has only three criteria for what he reads and teaches: “aesthetic splendor, intellectual power, wisdom.” At this point in literary scholarship he suspects “the profession is pretty much split down the middle” between aestheticists like himself and more postmodern theorists...
...terms of more contemporary authors, Bloom said “there’s no question about it, we have four first-class novelists writing at the moment,” Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and Cormack McCarthy, whose Blood Meridian he said was “so savage and splendid there’s been nothing as good since Faulkner...
...Bloom affably deflected references to his esteemed reputation. “Obviously I am not unique,” he said, “there are in every generation remarkable people who are teaching English and other literatures all over the world...
Shrugging and joking throughout the interview, Bloom bantered with others in the room in a self-effacing and familiar manner, and seemed to enjoy himself, laughing regularly. At one point, when I affirmed that I didn’t disagree with him about his political views, he wryly concurred, “we have very few arguments...