Harold Bloom
Influential critic whose works on Shakespeare provided quotable literary insights, though primarily a scholar.
Quotes by Harold Bloom
The poet's originality is a misprision of tradition.
The self is a perpetual invention.
The critic's true loyalty is to the text, not to any school or theory.
The best reading is rereading.
The aesthetic is a way of seeing the world anew.
Shakespeare's genius lies in his ability to create characters who are endlessly interpretable.
The poet's task is to make the old new again.
The self is a dialogue with the dead.
The critic's ultimate goal is to foster a love of reading.
The purpose of literature is to teach us how to live.
The aesthetic is a form of resistance to the ephemeral.
Shakespeare is the true multicultural author. He exists in all languages. He is put by the heart of all readers.
The anxiety of influence is the anxiety of being misunderstood, of being seen as less original than one knows oneself to be.
We read to learn the nature of our own souls.
Criticism is the art of knowing the hidden energies that course through the very fabric of our existence.
Hamlet is the most central of all Western literary characters; he is the Western self.
Poetry is the supreme fiction, madam.
The meaning of a poem can only be another poem.
I am naive enough to believe that criticism can be a heroic enterprise.
Shakespeare devours the world.