Possessed by Memory: The Inward Light of Criticism by Harold Bloom (English) Pap

Description: Possessed by Memory by Harold Bloom "In arguably his most personal and lasting book, Americas most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief ... readings of more than eighty texts by canonical authors--texts he has known by heart since childhood"-- FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description The great critic now departs from polemics to give us a moving, elegaic four-part spiritual autobiography- made up of brief, luminous readings of poetry, drama, and prose, Possessed by Memory finds Bloom sharing with us the works that he knows by heart"Wonderful. . . . Spectacular. . . . You feel the pulse of life, what poetry can bring to us if we let it."-The Philadelphia Inquirer"This audacious personal odyssey offers readers a cosmos of possibilities when contemplating what happens once we shuffle off this mortal coil."-The Christian Science Monitor"An elegiac meditation on a life lived through books."-O, The Oprah Magazine"The great critic revisits the literature that has meant most to him."-The New York Times Book ReviewHere is the daringly original literary critics most personal book- a four-part spiritual autobiography in the form of brief, luminous readings of poetry, drama, and prose-much of which he has known by heart since childhood. As one of his own mentors, M. H. Abrams, has said, to read Blooms commentaries is like "reading classic authors by flashes of lightning." Gone are the polemics; here Bloom argues elegiacally with nobody but himself. In "A Voice she Heard Before the World Was Made," he offers startling meditations on foundational concerns of Biblical study. "In the Elegy Season" finds him coming to terms movingly, from a new vantage, with writers on whom he has brooded for much of his life. And with brio and bravura in "The Imperfect Is Our Paradise," Bloom ranges dazzlingly through twentieth-century American poetry, from Wallace Stevens to Amy Clampitt. Possessed by Memory, in short, is essential Bloom. Author Biography Harold Bloom was a Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. His more than forty books include The Anxiety of Influence, Shakespeare- The Invention of the Human, The Western Canon, The American Religion, and The Daemon Knows- Literary Greatness and the American Sublime. He was a MacArthur Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism, the Catalonia International Prize, and Mexicos Alfonso Reyes International Prize. Review "Describe is what he does, perhaps more brilliantly than anyone else alive."--Esquire "The great critic revisits the literature that has meant most to him. "--The New York Times"Our eras Samuel Johnson...Possessed by Memory really is a kind of valediction... Bloom has loved literature deeply—and that love is, even in the face of death, a life-giving force."—Commonweal Magazine "These essays reveal a deeply personal attachment and fresh perspective. An eloquent and erudite rereading of the authors beloved works."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"A rich lifetime of readership and scholarship can be found within the covers of this equally rich book."—Publishers Weekly Promotional The great critic now departs from polemics to give us a moving, elegaic four-part spiritual autobiography- made up of brief, luminous readings of poetry, drama, and prose, Possessed by Memory finds Bloom sharing with us the works that he knows by heart Review Quote "Our eras Samuel Johnson... Possessed by Memory really is a kind of valediction... Bloom has loved literature deeply--and that love is, even in the face of death, a life-giving force." --Commonweal Magazine "These essays reveal a deeply personal attachment and fresh perspective. An eloquent and erudite rereading of the authors beloved works." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "A rich lifetime of readership and scholarship can be found within the covers of this equally rich book." --Publishers Weekly Promotional "Headline" The great critic now departs from polemics to give us a moving, elegaic four-part spiritual autobiography- made up of brief, luminous readings of poetry, drama, and prose, Possessed by Memory finds Bloom sharing with us the works that he knows by heart Excerpt from Book Part One: A Voice She Heard Before the World Was Made Thresholds to Voice: Augmenting a God in Ruins As I near the end of my eighties, I am aware of being in the elegy season. The majority of my close friends from my own generation have departed. I am haunted by many passages in Wallace Stevens, and one that I keep hearing centers his extraordinary poem, "The Course of a Particular": And though one says that one is part of everything, There is a conflict, there is a resistance involved; And being part is an exertion that declines: One feels the life of that which gives life as it is. Throughout his final poems, Stevens listens for the voice he heard before the world was made. Though he is not preoccupied with occult and Hermetic modes of speculation, in the manner either of William Butler Yeats or of D. H. Lawrence, he hears voices. Falling leaves cry out, houses laugh, syllables are spoken without speech, the wind breathes a motion, thoughts howl in the mind, the colossal sun sounds a scrawny cry, and the phoenix, mounted on a visionary palm tree, sings a foreign song. Sleepless like many other old men and women, I too dream what Stevens calls a heavy difference: A little while of Terra Paradise I dreamed, of autumn rivers, silvas green, Of sanctimonious mountains high in snow, But in that dream a heavy difference Kept waking and a mournful sense sought out, In vain, lifes season or deaths element. Montrachet-le-Jardin When that saddens me too much, something in my spirit turns to a more intimate Stevens: The cry is part. My solitaria Are the meditations of a central mind. I hear the motions of the spirit and the sound Of what is secret becomes, for me, a voice That is my own voice speaking in my ear. Chocorua to Its Neighbor Frequently at dawn, when I am very chilly and sit on the side of my bed, knowing it is not safe for me to go downstairs by myself in order to have some morning tea, I find deep peace in Stevens at his strongest: To say more than human things with human voice, That cannot be; to say human things with more Than human voice, that, also, cannot be; To speak humanly from the height or from the depth Of human things, that is acutest speech. Can human things be said with more than human voice? Stevens was a kind of Lucretian skeptic, as Shelley, Walt Whitman, and Walter Pater had been before him. Yet, of those three, only Pater would have agreed with Stevens as to whether we could hear a primordial utter Details ISBN0525562478 Author Harold Bloom Pages 544 Year 2020 ISBN-10 0525562478 ISBN-13 9780525562474 Format Paperback Subtitle The Inward Light of Criticism Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States DEWEY 809 Publisher Random House USA Inc Imprint Vintage Books Short Title Possessed by Memory Language English UK Release Date 2020-03-17 Publication Date 2020-03-17 AU Release Date 2020-03-17 NZ Release Date 2020-03-17 US Release Date 2020-03-17 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:145100204;

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