Introduction: “The Dialectics of Literary Tradition” by Harold Bloom
“The Dialectics of Literary Tradition” by Harold Bloom, first appeared in 1974 in the journal boundary 2, is known for its focus on the “anxiety of influence” concept, explores the main qualities and importance of a continuous Western literary tradition. Bloom argues that new writers grapple with and attempt to surpass the works of their predecessors, creating a dynamic interplay that shapes the course of literature. This theory, central to Bloom’s critical framework, has been highly influential in literary theory, sparking debate and shaping how we understand the relationship between authors and their literary heritage.
Summary of “The Dialectics of Literary Tradition” by Harold Bloom
The Tension Between Tradition and Innovation
- Bloom highlights the inherent tension in literary tradition, emphasizing that it stifles creativity as much as it nurtures it: “Tradition is now valuable precisely because it partly blocks, because it stifles the weak, because it represses even the strong.”
- This tension drives the creative process, as writers must contend with their precursors, consciously working against past forms to create something new.
Belatedness and Literary Tradition
- Bloom argues that modern writers are “latecomers” and must grapple with the legacy of those who came before them: “Nothing is now more salutary than such a sense [of belatedness]. Without it, we cannot distinguish between the energy of humanistic performance and merely organic energy.”
- He opposes Nietzsche’s idea that feeling like a latecomer is detrimental, instead seeing it as a crucial component of literary creation in the modern age.
The Myth of Continuity in Tradition
- Bloom critiques the notion of continuity in tradition, especially as framed by critics like Northrop Frye, who claim that tradition includes all writers and perspectives: “Frye’s reduction… is a noble idealization, and as a lie against time will go the way of every other noble idealization.”
- He suggests that literary tradition is selective and exclusive, shaped by cultural forces and canonical judgments rather than any inherent inclusivity.
Canon Formation and Revisionism
- Bloom discusses how literary canons are both created and dismantled over time. The process of canon formation, beginning with figures like Aristarchus in Alexandria, is central to the Western literary tradition: “We are Alexandrians still, and we may as well be proud of it, for it is central to our profession.”
- He also critiques the current state of literary revisionism, arguing that it has become dominant, to the point where traditional standards of literature are “fading into the light of a common garishness.”
The Role of the Teacher in Tradition
- Bloom reflects on the role of the teacher as both a bearer and challenger of tradition, emphasizing the teacher’s responsibility to confront the weight of tradition: “The teacher of literature… is condemned to teach the presentness of the past, because history, philosophy, and religion have withdrawn as agents from the Scene of Instruction.”
- He presents teaching as an inherently erotic act, in the Platonic sense of desiring what one does not yet possess: “Teaching, as Plato knew, is necessarily a branch of erotics, in the wide sense of desiring what we have not got, of redressing our poverty, of compounding with our fantasies.”
Belatedness and the Dialectics of Tradition
- Bloom explores the psychological burden of belatedness, especially in Romanticism, where writers felt haunted by their predecessors: “Romantic tradition is consciously late, and Romantic literary psychology is therefore necessarily a psychology of belatedness.”
- This sense of coming after, or trespassing upon sacred literary ground, becomes a central theme in modern literary works, exemplified by figures like Pynchon.
The Inescapability of Tradition
- Bloom asserts that no writer or thinker can escape tradition, as it informs all creation and education: “You cannot write or teach or think or even read, without imitation, and what you imitate is what another person has done.”
- This handing over of knowledge, or “traditio,” is essential to the survival of literary and cultural forms, even as each generation reshapes what it has inherited.
The Power of Repression in Tradition
- Bloom emphasizes the repressive function of literary tradition, which forces new authors into conflict with their predecessors: “The Milton who made his great poem identical with the process of repression that is vital to literary tradition.”
- He advocates for embracing this repression as a necessary condition for meaningful literary creation.
Conclusion: The Burden of Tradition
- Bloom concludes by noting the immense burden literary tradition places on both writers and teachers, who must navigate the dialectics of tradition while fostering new creation: “Instruction, in our late phase, becomes an antithetical process almost in spite of itself, and for antithetical teaching you require antithetical texts.”
- He calls for a deeper engagement with this burden rather than attempts to evade it, seeing it as crucial to both the survival and renewal of literary tradition.
Literary Terms/Concepts in “The Dialectics of Literary Tradition” by Harold Bloom
| Literary Term/Concept | Description | Explanation from Bloom’s Text |
| Tradition | The handing down of literary works, styles, and values across generations. | Bloom explores how tradition both enables and stifles creativity, describing it as a “handing-over” or transmission that includes repression, which challenges new authors to struggle against their past. |
| Belatedness | The feeling of coming after great predecessors in literature. | Bloom highlights the anxiety of influence felt by modern writers, arguing that this sense of being a latecomer is essential for distinguishing meaningful literary creation from mere “organic energy.” |
| Canon Formation | The process by which certain works are selected and deemed as classics. | Bloom critiques the historical process of canon formation, noting how it started in Alexandria and has continued through selective inclusion and exclusion, creating literary standards across generations. |
| Revisionism | The reinterpretation or reshaping of established literary works or canons. | Bloom argues that the current dominance of revisionism has led to the weakening of traditional literary standards, as constant revision leads to “a fading into the light of a common garishness.” |
| Dialectics | The interaction of opposing forces that leads to progress or development. | The central theme of Bloom’s essay is the “dialectics of tradition,” where he examines the dynamic struggle between tradition and new literary creation, resulting in both tension and transformation. |
| Influence | The impact of previous writers and their works on later writers. | Bloom describes how all writers are influenced by their precursors, and tradition is defined by the continuous influence passed down from one generation to the next. |
| Repression | The act of suppressing earlier literary forms or ideas to create something new. | Bloom discusses how repression is vital to the literary process, where new authors must repress their predecessors’ forms to forge their own identity and creativity. |
| Romantic Tradition | A literary movement emphasizing emotion, nature, and the sublime, often feeling late in history. | Bloom critiques Romanticism for its deep sense of belatedness and its obsessive grappling with literary predecessors, calling it a tradition “appalled by its own overt continuities.” |
| Modernism | A movement aimed at breaking away from traditional forms to express new ideas. | Bloom claims that Modernism never fully existed but was rather a myth turned dogma by critics like Hugh Kenner, transforming the experimental into an entrenched literary period. |
| The Scene of Instruction | The relationship between teacher and student in the transmission of knowledge. | Bloom discusses this concept in relation to literary tradition, likening it to a primal scene where teaching and literary influence occur, often with “internalized violence” between student and teacher. |
| Antithetical Teaching | Teaching that challenges both the students’ and teachers’ assumptions. | Bloom suggests that in the current phase of tradition, teaching must become antithetical, using texts that challenge the established norms of both teacher and student. |
| Myth of Continuity | The belief that literary tradition is a continuous, unbroken chain of influence. | Bloom critiques the idea of tradition as an inclusive continuum, arguing that tradition involves discontinuities and breaks, and the myth of continuity is a “lie against time” passed by critics on themselves. |
Contribution of “The Dialectics of Literary Tradition” by Harold Bloom to Literary Theory/Theories
1. Contribution to the Theory of Influence and Anxiety of Influence
- Key Idea: Bloom expands on his broader theoretical framework, often referred to as the “anxiety of influence,” where writers are in constant struggle with their literary precursors.
- From the Text: “To study literary tradition today is to achieve a dangerous but enabling act of the mind that works against all ease in fresh ‘creation.'”
- Contribution: This essay reinforces Bloom’s notion that creativity arises from a writer’s confrontation with tradition, where literary production is shaped by a tension between emulation and rebellion against past masters.
2. Contribution to Canon Formation and Canonical Criticism
- Key Idea: Bloom critiques the formation of literary canons and the selective process of which works are deemed “classics.”
- From the Text: “How are canons of accepted classics formed, and how are they unformed?… When Homer became a schoolbook, literature became a school subject quite permanently.”
- Contribution: This essay contributes to canonical criticism by examining the historical, cultural, and pedagogical processes through which certain texts are elevated to canonical status, while others are marginalized. He argues that canons are shaped not by inherent literary value but by cultural forces and institutional practices.
3. Contribution to Postmodernism and Revisionist Criticism
- Key Idea: Bloom critiques both Modernism and Postmodernism, framing them as myths perpetuated by critics and writers.
- From the Text: “Post-Modernism also has its canons and its canonizers; and I find myself surrounded by living classics, in recently dead poets of strong ambition and hysterical intensity.”
- Contribution: By deconstructing the myth of Modernism and critiquing Postmodernism, Bloom contributes to the broader discourse in literary theory about the fluidity of literary movements and the often arbitrary nature of the boundaries drawn between them.
4. Contribution to Hermeneutics and Interpretation Theory
- Key Idea: Bloom touches on the interpretative act within tradition, discussing how readers and writers engage with texts from the past through reinterpretation and revision.
- From the Text: “Literary tradition, once we even contemplate entering its academies, now insists upon being our ‘family history,’ and inducts us into its ‘family romance.'”
- Contribution: His discussion of literary tradition as a “family romance” highlights the psychoanalytic underpinnings of interpretative practices, connecting the reading of texts with the psychological dynamics of influence, Oedipal struggles, and familial relationships.
5. Contribution to Romanticism and the Concept of Belatedness
- Key Idea: Bloom emphasizes the Romantic tradition’s fixation on belatedness, a feeling of being chronologically and creatively late in comparison to literary precursors.
- From the Text: “Romantic tradition is consciously late, and Romantic literary psychology is therefore necessarily a psychology of belatedness.”
- Contribution: This essay advances the theory that Romanticism, and its descendants, is rooted in the anxiety of coming after great predecessors, contributing to a broader understanding of how time, history, and lateness shape literary production and identity.
6. Contribution to Deconstruction and the Challenge to Continuity
- Key Idea: Bloom challenges the idea of seamless continuity in literary tradition, advocating for a recognition of discontinuities and breaks in the evolution of literary works.
- From the Text: “The fiction of continuity is a noble idealization, and as a lie against time will go the way of every other noble idealization.”
- Contribution: This critique aligns with deconstructionist approaches to literature, where presumed structures or grand narratives (like continuity in tradition) are exposed as constructed and often misleading.
7. Contribution to Pedagogical Theory in Literature
- Key Idea: Bloom offers a reflection on the role of teachers in transmitting literary tradition and shaping the way students engage with literature.
- From the Text: “The teacher of literature… is condemned to teach the presentness of the past.”
- Contribution: This essay contributes to pedagogical theory by framing the teaching of literature as an “erotic” and dialectical process where both teachers and students are engaged in the struggle between the weight of tradition and the creation of new meaning.
8. Contribution to the Theory of Repression in Literary Creation
- Key Idea: Bloom argues that repression is a necessary aspect of literary tradition, where new writers must suppress earlier forms to produce original work.
- From the Text: “The Milton who made his great poem identical with the process of repression that is vital to literary tradition.”
- Contribution: Bloom extends psychoanalytic ideas of repression into literary theory, suggesting that creativity is bound up with the act of suppressing earlier influences, a vital process in shaping strong literary voices.
9. Contribution to the Debate on Tradition vs. Innovation
- Key Idea: Bloom asserts that tradition is not only a source of continuity but also a force that obstructs and challenges innovation.
- From the Text: “Literary tradition appears powerless to justify its own selectivities… it moves from an idealized function to a stifling or blocking tendency.”
- Contribution: This essay contributes to debates in literary theory on how tradition both facilitates and hinders literary innovation, reinforcing the view that the dialectical relationship between tradition and new creation is central to literary progress.
Examples of Critiques Through “The Dialectics of Literary Tradition” by Harold Bloom
| Literary Work | Critique Through Bloom’s Lens | Explanation from the Text |
| “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon | Critique of Belatedness and Tradition Inversion | Bloom uses Pynchon as an example of a modern writer grappling with the weight of tradition, describing Gravity’s Rainbow as a work of “sado-masochistic parody,” reflecting the dark humor and inversion of traditional literary archetypes. He sees Pynchon’s work as a reaction to literary predecessors. |
| “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson | Romantic Belatedness and Guilt of Tradition | Bloom admires Emerson but critiques his failure to overcome the Romantic guilt of belatedness. Bloom asserts that Self-Reliance reflects the struggle to assert originality while being haunted by literary predecessors: “Whitman follows Emerson…yet the guilt of belatedness haunts him.” |
| “Paradise Lost” by John Milton | Tradition of Repression and Authority | Bloom highlights Paradise Lost as a central example of literary tradition as repression. Milton’s Satan is described as an artist whose act of creation is limited by repression, a figure embodying the struggle against a powerful predecessor: “Milton made his great poem identical with repression.” |
| “Aurora Leigh” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning | Critique of Canonical Misjudgment | Bloom critiques the once-high canonical status of Aurora Leigh, using it as an example of how literary greatness is often misjudged by contemporaries. “Ruskin…proclaimed Aurora Leigh by Mrs. Browning to be the best long poem of the Nineteenth Century,” but this judgment did not stand the test of time. |
Criticism Against “The Dialectics of Literary Tradition” by Harold Bloom
1. Overemphasis on Belatedness and Anxiety of Influence
- Criticism: Some critics argue that Bloom’s focus on belatedness and the anxiety of influence limits the understanding of literary creation, reducing the complex dynamics of literary production to a psychological struggle between the writer and their predecessors.
- Issue: This perspective can overlook the social, political, and cultural factors that also influence literary works, simplifying the creative process into a one-dimensional conflict.
2. Elitism in Canon Formation
- Criticism: Bloom’s defense of the canon and his preference for established literary traditions have been seen as elitist and exclusionary, often disregarding marginalized voices and alternative literary traditions.
- Issue: By championing a Eurocentric literary canon, Bloom is criticized for neglecting the contributions of non-Western, minority, and women writers, reinforcing hierarchical structures in literature.
3. Dismissal of Modernism and Postmodernism
- Criticism: Bloom’s claim that Modernism never existed as a literary movement, and his dismissive attitude towards Postmodernism, has been met with resistance by scholars who see both movements as critical to understanding 20th-century literature.
- Issue: His critique of Modernism and Postmodernism as mere myths diminishes the significance of the literary innovations and thematic explorations brought forward by these movements, such as fragmentation, subjectivity, and the challenge to grand narratives.
4. Neglect of Social and Historical Contexts
- Criticism: Bloom’s focus on tradition and the personal psychological struggle between authors neglects the role of historical and social contexts in shaping literary works and movements.
- Issue: His theory of influence tends to abstract literature from its socio-political environment, ignoring how external factors such as class, race, and gender can profoundly shape literary creation and reception.
5. Resistance to Feminist and Multicultural Criticism
- Criticism: Bloom has been resistant to feminist and multicultural critiques, which aim to expand the literary canon and include more diverse perspectives.
- Issue: By dismissing movements like Woman’s Liberation and other identity-based literary movements, Bloom risks alienating critics and readers who seek a more inclusive and representative literary tradition.
6. Overreliance on Psychoanalytic Frameworks
- Criticism: Bloom’s application of psychoanalytic ideas, particularly Freud’s Oedipal complex, to literary tradition has been critiqued for being overly reductive.
- Issue: This reliance on psychoanalysis may obscure other literary, theoretical, and structural insights, limiting the scope of literary criticism to familial and psychological models of influence.
7. Limited Engagement with Contemporary Literary Forms
- Criticism: Bloom’s preference for classical literature and established canonical figures leaves little room for contemporary literary experimentation, including newer forms like digital literature or genre fiction.
- Issue: His reluctance to engage with these evolving literary forms creates a gap between traditional literary criticism and the current literary landscape, which increasingly incorporates diverse voices and innovative genres.
8. Idealization of the Literary Tradition
- Criticism: Bloom’s idealization of literary tradition as a guiding force may romanticize the past, overlooking how tradition can also serve to oppress or marginalize innovative voices.
- Issue: His view of tradition as both enabling and repressing new literary creation can be seen as overly deterministic, leaving little space for more fluid or collaborative approaches to literary development.
Representative Quotations from “The Dialectics of Literary Tradition” by Harold Bloom with Explanation
| Quotation | Explanation |
| “Tradition is now valuable precisely because it partly blocks, because it stifles the weak, because it represses even the strong.” | Bloom argues that literary tradition serves as both an obstacle and a source of strength for writers, forcing them to contend with and overcome the influence of predecessors. |
| “The myth of Modernism has aged into a dogma, and Post-Modernism also has its canons and its canonizers.” | Bloom critiques the institutionalization of both Modernism and Postmodernism, suggesting that what was once revolutionary has become rigid and canonized, losing its original vitality. |
| “Nothing is now more salutary than such a sense [of belatedness]. Without it, we cannot distinguish between the energy of humanistic performance and merely organic energy.” | Bloom redefines belatedness as an essential part of literary creativity, where the awareness of coming after great predecessors spurs writers toward more deliberate innovation. |
| “The teacher of literature… is condemned to teach the presentness of the past, because history, philosophy, and religion have withdrawn as agents from the Scene of Instruction.” | This reflects Bloom’s view of literary instruction, where teachers must focus on how the past is ever-present in literature, as other disciplines have lost their central role in education. |
| “We are Alexandrians still, and we may as well be proud of it, for it is central to our profession.” | Bloom acknowledges the ongoing influence of Alexandrian scholarship, which set the precedent for canon formation and literary criticism, shaping how we classify and teach literature today. |
| “Romantic tradition is consciously late, and Romantic literary psychology is therefore necessarily a psychology of belatedness.” | Bloom describes Romanticism as a literary movement deeply aware of its place in history, burdened by a sense of coming after past greatness and haunted by the desire to transcend it. |
| “Tradition, the Latin traditio, is etymologically a handing-over or a giving-over, a delivery, a giving-up and so even a surrender or a betrayal.” | Bloom emphasizes the complex nature of tradition, suggesting that it involves both the transmission of knowledge and a form of surrender or betrayal of past literary achievements. |
| “Literary tradition appears powerless to justify its own selectivities… it moves from an idealized function to a stifling or blocking tendency.” | Bloom critiques the notion that literary tradition inherently justifies the inclusion of certain works, arguing that it often becomes a restrictive force rather than a liberating one. |
| “We cannot write or teach or think or even read, without imitation, and what you imitate is what another person has done.” | This underscores Bloom’s belief that all literary creation is influenced by imitation, with tradition acting as a continuous force that shapes new works, whether consciously or unconsciously. |
| “All continuities possess the paradox of being absolutely arbitrary in their origins, and absolutely inescapable in their teleologies.” | Bloom points out that literary traditions often arise arbitrarily, yet once established, they become inescapable forces, shaping how future generations engage with literature. |
Suggested Readings: “The Dialectics of Literary Tradition” by Harold Bloom
- Eysteinsson, Astradur. “Modernism in Literary History.” The Concept of Modernism, Cornell University Press, 1990, pp. 50–102. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv2n7gpz.6. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
- Bloom, Harold. “The Dialectics of Literary Tradition.” Boundary 2, vol. 2, no. 3, 1974, pp. 528–38. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/302670. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
- Schultz, Susan M. “‘Returning to Bloom’: John Ashbery’s Critique of Harold Bloom.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 37, no. 1, 1996, pp. 24–48. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1208749. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
- Giraldi, William. “Bloomian Stride.” The Kenyon Review, vol. 35, no. 2, 2013, pp. 175–85. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24242006. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
- Bloom, Harold. “Poetry, Revisionism, Repression.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 2, no. 2, 1975, pp. 233–51. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1342901. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.