20th-21st century (Late Modern/Contemporary) · Literary Criticism
Harold Bloom (1930-2019) was an American literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is best known for his theory of the 'anxiety of influence,' which posits that poets struggle against their literary predecessors, and for his passionate defense of the Western literary canon. Bloom was a prolific writer whose work championed aesthetic autonomy and the power of individual genius against what he saw as ideological reductions of literature.