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The Western Canon
The Books and School of the Ages
Brief Description
The literary critic defends the importance of Western literature from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Kafka and Beckett in this acclaimed national bestseller. “An impressive work...deeply, rightly passionate about the great books of the past.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is...
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The Western Canon
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Description
The literary critic defends the importance of Western literature from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Kafka and Beckett in this acclaimed national bestseller.
“An impressive work...deeply, rightly passionate about the great books of the past.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World
Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is more than a required reading list—it is a “heroically brave, formidably learned” defense of the great works of literature that comprise the traditional Western Canon. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicisation of literature and presents a guide to the essential writers of the western literary tradition (The New York Times Book Review).
Placing William Shakespeare at the “centre of the canon,” Bloom examines the literary contributions of Dante Alighieri, John Milton, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Leo Tolstoy, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Pablo Neruda, and many others. Bloom's book, much-discussed and praised in publications as diverse as The Economist and Entertainment Weekly, offers a dazzling display of erudition and passion.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780063452046
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 25 September 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: HarperCollins
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 34.0mm
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 229.0mm
Weight: 549g
Pages: 592
About the Author
Harold Bloom is a Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. His more than twenty-five books include THE BEST POEMS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE; GENIUS, HOW TO READ AND WHY, SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN, THE WESTERN CANON,THE BOOK OF J and THE ANXIETY OF INFLUENCE. He is a MacArthur Prize Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, including the Academy’s Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism, the International Prize of Catalonia, and the Alfonso Reyes Prize of Mexico.
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