The critic, who died last week, polarised opinion
There are good ways of being old-fashioned and there are bad. One may seek to preserve important practices or ways of thinking in the face of fashion. One may also be blind to the ways in which tradition can work to protect certain forms of power or marginalise certain groups of people. The US literary critic, Harold Bloom, who died last week aged 89, was a classic example of someone old-fashioned in both ways.
One of the most influential critics of the past half-century, Bloom was also one of the most divisive. He railed against what he called “the school of resentment”, the “Feminists, Afrocentrists, Marxists, Foucault-inspired New Historicists, or Deconstructors” who were not interested in literature but only wanted to “advance their programs for social change”.
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