Harold Bloom’s Concern and “The Touch” that Always Does Wonders

Beture Memmedova

Abstract


This paper deals with the current debates as whether literary canon or classical works are destined to fall into oblivion or survive. The American literary critic Harold Bloom is very pessimistic about the future of literary studies and teaching literature as a whole. In his books, he makes elegiac conclusions about the Departments of English Language and Literature, which are likely to be renamed into the departments of Cultural Studies. His another concern is the literary “isms” and “ologies” which he considers to be destroying literature. The paper also focuses on the nature of reading and its various impacts on the reader, and its significance for literature students. The aim of the paper is to show that despite some grain of truth in Bloom’s writings as regards lack of aesthetic value of literary works in the postmodernist period when popular culture has taken over the canon works, there is no reason to worry about the present state of literary studies and literary criticism.

Keywords


Harold Bloom's concerns; canon; enduring literature; popular culture

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2017.41.1.99
Date of publication: 2017-07-04 09:02:33
Date of submission: 2017-06-27 10:30:13


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