Subject: Clinamen/Bloom
From: William Hochman (wh14@is9.nyu.edu)
Date: Sun Jun 25 2000 - 10:59:03 GMT
Matty K's favorite word appeared today in "The Most Hedaling of
Pleasures," a review by Michael Gorra of Harold Bloom's _How To Read and
Why_. In the second paragraph of this NYTimes Book Review (p.10), Gorra
wrote ""No, what's troubling is its language, a style in which words
difficult in themselves--clinamen, kenosis--are assigned wholly private
meanings, in which Blakean aphorism and aleegegory too often subsititute
for analysis and example. Though Bloom's model seems powerful, his
terminology has never gained much traction, and perhaps its major
influence has come in its rejection by feminist critics--as if he were
himself the precursor whose work must be overthrown."
Gorra concludes by seeing Bloom as a critic who can only, on rare
occasion, echo some of the brilliance of his early work and I think that's
right. By the time Bloom got to Salinger, he had nothing to add except $
to his bank account.
will
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