- Harold Bloom Anxiety of Influence - Corda Strappata
In the sections of Anxiety of Influence discussed in this article, Harold Bloom details his personal thoughts on poetic influence and interpretation. Bloom reveals conflicted opinions concerning the notion of tradition in art and poetry, and its subsequent benefit and/ or hindrance to the form. He toys considerably with the possibility of the continuance of tradition in poetic works to be both beneficial and destructive to the form and the future of the form. By expressing these views, Bloom aims to change common idealistic thoughts on poetry, while simultaneously offering an innovative method of criticizing poetry.
Intra-Poetic Relationships: The Failed vs. the Strong Poet
Bloom believes that all writers are influenced by the writers who came before them and left a lasting mark on the history and development of the poetic form. These relationships between poets, Bloom defines as intra-poetic relationships. While this may be the case, however, Bloom also draws a distinction between the failed poet and the strong poet. Although profoundly influenced by his precursors, the strong poet refuses to repeat or imitate influential works completely. Instead, he looks to influential poets for his own place to be original. The failed poet is one who has failed in his attempt to attain originality as a result of outright imitation of the works of his precursors.
Further in the discussion, Bloom defines the methods and practices by which a modern poet can become “strong” in the Six Revisionary Ratios. While he must remain gracious to and influenced by his precursors, the strong poet must not repeat past works and accomplishments. To avoid such repetition, the strong poet must purposely misinterpret these works to create for himself, a personal sphere within these boundaries. To Bloom, the creation of the individual poetic self requires the poet to deny the influence of previous poets by intentionally misunderstanding and misinterpreting these sources.
Juxtaposed with this definition of the strong poet, Bloom also claims that the strong poet, despite his accomplished “individuality,” will never equal his precursors in greatness. Strong poets are, in fact, “belated sons who will never be as great as… [their] fathers” (p. 1794). As poetry evolves with time, so too, is it weakened with time. Because no poet is as great as his precursors, each poet becomes slightly weaker than the last. Although a poet can be “strong,” according to Bloom’s definition, this strength diminishes with time; in this way, the strength of poetry itself fades with time, as well. The inevitable result is the eventual death of poetry.
Six Revisionary Ratios
Bloom turns to the Six Revisionary Ratios to outline the methods to which one should adhere to escape the imitation of past poetic influences. These ratios explain Bloom’s theory of the necessity to misinterpret influential poetry to produce unique poetry and to become a strong poet:
1. Clinamen: the method of misreading or misinterpreting a poem. The poet denies the content of the poem itself, and misinterprets it such that it relates to external meanings rather than the meanings as intended by the poet. This method “corrects” the new poem by allowing the old one to move in the direction of the present.
2. Tessera: the technique of “completing” the original poem. The new poem is written as an endnote to the first, influenced by, yet moving away from the original poem.
3. Kenosis: refers to the reduction of one’s own poetry, removing all traces of repetition with the first, and doing the same with the first, so that in the end, the two are unique and individual.
4. Daemonization: welcomes the opinion of a third party, though this third party is the poet himself. He looks at the original poem as a reaction to an earlier work, and as simply another piece of poetic tradition. By viewing the similarities between the two, the original poem suddenly loses some of the uniqueness originally perceived; as a result, the new poem in progress gains a newfound individuality.
5. Askesis: involves the separation of oneself, thus, the poem from all other people and influences. As the person becomes separated, so too does his work, minimizing the similarities to the original poem.
6. Apophrades: the process of acknowledging past poetic influences such that it seems that the “new” poet is also the creator of the original. This method allows for a role reversal whereby the earlier poet now mirrors the new.
This article has summarized only two of Bloom’s theories as discussed in The Anxiety of Influence, those of poetic influence and originality, and the methods of attaining originality and becoming a “strong” poet. Please consult the complete work for more information.
Bloom, Harold. (2001). “From The Anxiety of Influence.” Ed. by Vincent B. Leitch. TheNorton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton, p. 1797-1805.
Amanda Tiller - Amanda Tiller is a Librarian residing in St. John's, Newfoundland. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree and a Master of Arts ...
