A Map of Misreading (Galaxy Books, 623) [Paperback]

Harold Bloom (Author)

Book Description

Series: Galaxy Books, 623 | Publication Date: August 28, 1980

The second volume in Harold Bloom's series of works which reveal his theory of revisionism, demonstrating his theory that patterns of imagery in poems represent both a response to and a defence against the influence of precursor poems.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In the field of literary criticism the most potentially influential book published in the last twelve months is surely Harold Bloom's A Map of Misreading"--Margaret Wimsatt, Commonweal

"The sincerity of this book...the sheer care for poetry which governs both this work and its predecessor, is unmistakable and most impressive."--Michael Wood, The New York Review of Books

"An exceptionally subtle and complex work."--Kenneth Burke, The New Republic

"Bloom is the most rare of critics. He has what seems to be a totally detailed command of English poetry and its scholarship....Because of his entirely gripping theoretical passion his readings are almost unparalleled in skill and thematic nuance."--Edward Said, The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Harold Bloom, Yale University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 28, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195028090
• ISBN-13: 978-0195028096
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,515,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More 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 thirty books include The Best Poems of the English Language, The Art of Reading Poetry, and The Book of J. 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars To the Dark Tower, July 11, 2000

By 

Douglas A. Storm (Glen Carbon, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Map of Misreading (Galaxy Books, 623) (Paperback)

After shaking up the academic world with his "theoretical" "Anxiety of Influence", Bloom begins to settle into what would prove his proper mode--the discursive literary essay. "A Map of Misreading" centers upon Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (one of Bloom's touchstones for his theories) as the perfect example of the latecomer Romantic poet struggling against his precursors. It is Bloom's wonder and love of this poem that is on display here as much as "proof" of his theory.

What is most evident in all of Bloom's books, and what is most important, is an obvious passion for reading (reading anything and everything). Bloom ranges across British and American Poets to discover how poems struggle against other poems. But, frankly, what I've always come away from a Bloom book with is a map of Bloom's misreadings that are worth a college education in and of themselves. We discover Emerson afresh and hear of Dutch Psychologist J. H. Van Den Berg, discover we must encounter Hans Jonas on Gnosticism and The Kabbalah of Isaac Luria(if we're to know anything of the roots of literary struggling against the precursor) and wish we'd memorized Paradise Lost. In short, for me, he encourages continued and life-long (mis)reading.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The great critic of our age, November 29, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Map of Misreading: With a New Preface (Paperback)

Harold Bloom is the great literary critic of our age. His passion for reading is felt in every line he writes. This does not mean that his lead- ideas as the 'anxiety of influence' and 'map of misreading' are to be taken uncritically, but rather that they ordinarily lead him to ' open up the texts' in new ways, making surprising and interesting connections.