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For what it's worth, he disavows this list, which was in the appendix of his book [1] Bloom: But can we make an agreement? Let’s forget that damned list. Inte

For what it's worth, he disavows this list, which was in the appendix of his book [1] Bloom: But can we make an agreement? Let’s forget that damned list. Interviewer: Ha. Do you mean the appendix in the back of the book that lists all the canonical works? Bloom: The list was not my idea. It was the idea of the publisher, the editor, and my agents. I fought it. I finally gave up. I hated it. I did it off the top of my head. I left out a lot of things that should be there and I probably put in a couple of things that I now would like to kick out. I kept it out of the Italian and the Swedish translations, but it’s in all the other translations—about 15 or 18 of them. I’m sick of the whole thing. All over the world, including here, people reviewed and attacked the list and didn’t read the book. So let’s agree right now, my dear. We will not mention the list. [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4w4dk3/harold-bloom-431-v15n12 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4w4dk3/harold-bloom-431-v...

keiferski 7y ago
“Disavowed” is a misleading word to use. He had criticisms of his list, but what the quote doesn’t mention is that Bloom was involved in a decades-long battle on the value of the idea of a canon. I think he was just tired of talking about it with people that hadn’t read the book in the first place.
- EdwardCoffin 7y ago
  Well, disavowed was my word, not his, but I stand by it. It seems pretty clearly to be a disavowal to me.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Right, but you’re misreading the context in which he said it. He disavowed some of the specific choices, maybe the idea of comprehensively enumerating them in a list. But he didn’t disavow the concept of a western canon or even most of the specific books in the list. “I did it off the top of my head. I left out a lot of things that should be there and I probably put in a couple of things that I now would like to kick out.”
    - EdwardCoffin 7y ago
      The original post links to the list, the one he is disavowing. That's the context, that specific list.
      - keiferski 7y ago
        Your comment is misleading because it doesn’t mention that Bloom spent virtually his entire career defending the value of classic literature. The fact that he had minor criticisms of his list and didn’t want to talk about it doesn’t mean that he disavowed it and that isn’t what the word disavowed means. Disavowed suggests that he is dismissive of the contents of the list entirely, which again, could not be further from the truth. Quoting a brief Vice article leaves out decades of context.
        valvar 7y ago
        As I understand it, he was opposed to the idea of composing a list like that, i.e. a definitive list of what the canon is and what you should read. There's no contradiction with such a disavowal and defending the canon as such. Obviously there are some works that are core to the canon, that I'm sure he would urge everyone to read, such as the works he mainly discusses in the book (Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, Goethe, the Bible, etc). That doesn't mean that he has to be a proponent of compiling them into a neat list.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        The list is the object of his statement, but it’s not the context in which he’s making the statement. When he says he “disavows the list” he’s talking about disavowing the idea that the list published as an appendix to his book is a comprehensive list of western canon. (It’s also clear that he’s gotten this question before and doesn’t want to debate the details of specific items on the list.) But it is clear from his statement that “I probably put in a couple of things that I now would like to kick out” that he’s not disavowing the idea that the vast majority of the books on the list (all but a “couple”) are in fact in his view part of the western canon. You’re taking a narrow point made in the context of a discussion with literary nerds (“I don’t want to defend every jot and tiddle of this specific list”) and by presenting it without context, you’re making it seem like he’s rejecting that the list is in his view mostly accurate.
- the_bowme 7y ago
  Seems like a clear disavowal of the list itself, although not of the concept of a canon altogether.
  - valvar 7y ago
    Bloom was one of the greatest proponents of the concept of the canon as such, but it is not my impression that he thought of it as some neat shopping list.

keiferski 7y ago

“Disavowed” is a misleading word to use. He had criticisms of his list, but what the quote doesn’t mention is that Bloom was involved in a decades-long battle on the value of the idea of a canon. I think he was just tired of talking about it with people that hadn’t read the book in the first place.

EdwardCoffin 7y ago
Well, disavowed was my word, not his, but I stand by it. It seems pretty clearly to be a disavowal to me.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Right, but you’re misreading the context in which he said it. He disavowed some of the specific choices, maybe the idea of comprehensively enumerating them in a list. But he didn’t disavow the concept of a western canon or even most of the specific books in the list. “I did it off the top of my head. I left out a lot of things that should be there and I probably put in a couple of things that I now would like to kick out.”
  - EdwardCoffin 7y ago
    The original post links to the list, the one he is disavowing. That's the context, that specific list.
    - keiferski 7y ago
      Your comment is misleading because it doesn’t mention that Bloom spent virtually his entire career defending the value of classic literature. The fact that he had minor criticisms of his list and didn’t want to talk about it doesn’t mean that he disavowed it and that isn’t what the word disavowed means. Disavowed suggests that he is dismissive of the contents of the list entirely, which again, could not be further from the truth. Quoting a brief Vice article leaves out decades of context.
      - valvar 7y ago
        As I understand it, he was opposed to the idea of composing a list like that, i.e. a definitive list of what the canon is and what you should read. There's no contradiction with such a disavowal and defending the canon as such. Obviously there are some works that are core to the canon, that I'm sure he would urge everyone to read, such as the works he mainly discusses in the book (Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, Goethe, the Bible, etc). That doesn't mean that he has to be a proponent of compiling them into a neat list.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      The list is the object of his statement, but it’s not the context in which he’s making the statement. When he says he “disavows the list” he’s talking about disavowing the idea that the list published as an appendix to his book is a comprehensive list of western canon. (It’s also clear that he’s gotten this question before and doesn’t want to debate the details of specific items on the list.) But it is clear from his statement that “I probably put in a couple of things that I now would like to kick out” that he’s not disavowing the idea that the vast majority of the books on the list (all but a “couple”) are in fact in his view part of the western canon. You’re taking a narrow point made in the context of a discussion with literary nerds (“I don’t want to defend every jot and tiddle of this specific list”) and by presenting it without context, you’re making it seem like he’s rejecting that the list is in his view mostly accurate.
the_bowme 7y ago
Seems like a clear disavowal of the list itself, although not of the concept of a canon altogether.
- valvar 7y ago
  Bloom was one of the greatest proponents of the concept of the canon as such, but it is not my impression that he thought of it as some neat shopping list.