The Western Canon. The Books and Schools of the Ages

Without any respect for those literary traditions, [Harold Bloom] interprets, judges, and pontificates about the literations written in Spanish and Portuguese in the same chapter, ignoring that they belong to a very diverse group of cultures writing in different languages. While most Hispanists woul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Hispanic outlook in higher education 2001-01, Vol.II (8), p.52
Main Author: Hernandez Rodriguez, Rafael
Format: Magazinearticle
Language:English
Subjects:
Bloom Harold
Literature
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Without any respect for those literary traditions, [Harold Bloom] interprets, judges, and pontificates about the literations written in Spanish and Portuguese in the same chapter, ignoring that they belong to a very diverse group of cultures writing in different languages. While most Hispanists would find Bloom's association odd, it seems very natural to him. Apparently, the critic does not think it necessary to differentiate linguistic and cultural traditions in a region that he imagines as one big block that can be understood by "studding" just a few (the ones more familiar to him) literatures. With astonishing superficiality and a dear lack of knowledge, Bloom throws into the same sack three very different poets: Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, and Fernando Pessoa, a poet who is a literature in himself. And in Bloom's interpretations, the only thing stressed is that all of them read [Whitman] in the original. But if this is the only aspect that Bloom underlines, the reader suspects, it is because that aspect is the one that pleases the critic the most -- or, even worse, the only one he is willing to accept.