Harold Bloom interview on Harry Potter, the Internet and more (2000)

Harold Bloom talks about his latest book, "How to Read and Why," popular fiction, Harry Potter, the idea of individual genius and the trouble with the internet.
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[@ManufacturingIntellect]

Check out these GREAT Harold Bloom books on Amazon! "How to Read and Why": amzn.to/318PRW8 "Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds": amzn.to/315ucy8 "Possessed by Memory: The Inward Light of Criticism": amzn.to/2UJGxpd Join us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/ManufacturingIntellect Donate Crypto! commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/868d67d2-1628-44a8-b8dc-8f9616d62259 Share this video! Get Two Books FREE with a Free Audible Trial: amzn.to/2LBdkZl Checking out the affiliate links above helps me bring even more high quality videos by earning me a small commission! And if you have any suggestions for future content, make sure to subscribe on the Patreon page. Thank you for your support!

[@mathiasuriel6002]

@Canaan Adriel Definitely, I have been using kaldroStream for years myself =)

[@thornecassidy9019]

For the many who claim that Bloom trashes the "great gray ocean of the internet" while snickering that they found this video on the internet, please go back and watch. He didn't trash it. He bemoaned an undisciplined wandering through its great stretches of emptiness. He proposed that one needs standards of beauty and logic to approach new things profitably, and to identify worthwhile endeavors for our limited time.

[@0live0wire0]

The number of views this incredible interview has supports his position. 99% of people use the internet solely to entertain themselves. Quality educational content is scarce and is swept away because of the algorithm the internet uses - here popular taste is king.

[@nickschmitt8594]

My undisciplined wandering has brought me nothing but despair.

[@qstunrr]

Nick Schmitt And by now I hope we all know that despair is evil.

[@g.i.clamvirus2058]

Yet without despair, how do we rediscover Love and Life and Ideas in even fuller glory?

[@SuperKaBlooey]

Well said.

[@joanvega2177]

"Are millions and millions of people wrong?" "I'm afraid so." Nothing but respect for this man. May he rest in peace.

[@serban8298]

He was a great mind, but he was wrong about this

[@innociduousnepheliad8140]

​@@serban8298 No, he wasn't. Harry Potter is a wonderful book, and it makes sense for people to have it as their favourite; however, it does not, in any way, possess the traits of a masterpiece that can let itself be known by the locution of "the acme of English literature". It's a little better than mediocre but certainly not even comparable to high literature.

[@advancedraymondology2914]

@@innociduousnepheliad8140 He basically said people were reading Potter for "fashion" rather than actually enjoying the books. So, yes, he was wrong. Whether they are great literature or not isn't the issue. He implied, or pretty much came right out and said, they didn't even deserve their success as populist, commercial books. He said they would be forgotten five or ten years down the road. It's not debatable: he was wrong. And so are you, for not understanding what people are saying he was wrong about.

[@jzocchio]

@@advancedraymondology2914 is the amount of people reading the Harry Potter franchise today comparable to the amount of people that read it when it was being released?

[@serban8298]

@@jzocchio I could ask you the same about any classic!The answer is the same:NO!Classics are now mostly read by people in academic circles(including me ).I'm not trying to be a hypster and I'm not trying to say Harry Potter is better than classics(though it is better than some of them).It's just that people aren't interested in literature anymore!And I said that Bloom is dead wrong because Harry Potter IS worthy of its fans and is actually a masterpiece in the storytelling sense!They believe that all literature should be overly complicated and deeply philosophical to be good, but that's just a narrow conception!If a book has a good story, it is good literature!

[@andrewkulubi9919]

Most grammatically correct comment section i have ever seen.

[@michaelwu7678]

Ironic

[@sanketx143]

Yours too, @@michaelwu7678.

[@FinnyC]

@stephen noonan Prisicely

[@vrfvfdcdvgtre2369]

Rose interrupts the quote of turning 70. Rude. Can anyone finish it?

[@Laocoon283]

They all scared to make a mistake and get ripped to pieces lmao.

[@Falstaff0809]

I recently quit Facebook and discovered Bloom. Getting my head out of the Net and back to books makes me agree with so much Bloom has to say.

[@b_to_the_b]

He is a pretentious asshole and so will you be

[@willmercury]

@@b_to_the_b Such reactive hostility, externalized blithely without real risk; did you get that from a book, or from the Internet?

[@marcoalaridwhite1315]

I'm glad that you could let a KZbin comment section know how much better you're doing without the internet.

[@Chris-eo1bp]

@@b_to_the_b What about the word pretentious.

[@marshaharvey5921]

you are in for quite a treat.

[@UncleClauClau]

Rest in peace, my darling.

[@haroldberman1341]

Jesus

[@UncleClauClau]

@@haroldberman1341 Him too.

[@haroldberman1341]

Ha!

[@James-gk8ip]

@@haroldberman1341 Bloom called everyone "darling," that's the reference.

[@alexandraw.4012]

"We read in the shadow of mortality". How bittersweet.

[@Solid_Snake_MGS2]

I agree with Bloom for the most part, but reading Harry Potter as a child did get me into reading so that I would then go on to read all the classics he discussed. I read Charlotte’s Web, Through the Looking Glass, Lord of the Rings, etc. as a child after Harry Potter. Then when I got older I read Dante, Moby Dick, and the Odyssey.

[@serban8298]

Harry Potter was the first book series I read in a serious manner.After becoming accustomed to reading thick books as an early teen(fantasy and horror), I got into classics around a year and a half later as I was at a philology profile.Now I'm in my first year of college as a Letters student.Basically, I'm on my way to develop myself as a literary scholar.So yes, Harry Potter may not be a deep or cathartic work but it's fine as an entertainment, just like fantasy books in general.It doesn't mean you can't enjoy classics too.Actually, I have 2 literature teachers in college who read fantasy and one of them actually teaches it in an optional course!

[@londongael414]

@@serban8298 While I agree with what you say, I think Harry Potter is a bit more than entertainment - as least as much as any of the classic children's books mentioned. There are moral problems, there is complexity, there is a range of emotional demand, there is an avoidance of obvious resolutions. And the theme, unusually for a children's book, is death. There are cliched elements, but these are superficial and not important. And the books seem to be holding up, nearly thirty years after the first one came out. So, much as I love Harold Bloom, he was wrong about this one.

[@ryangullage410]

Harry Potter taught an entire generation how to be readers.

[@ryangullage410]

That’s how readers of novels want it.

[@ryangullage410]

The commercial demand for magical thinking is rife.

[@davidculwell755]

Prescient Harold Bloom. "If as a nation we stop thinking well, someday we will yet cease to be a democracy."

[@davida.rosales6025]

But, that was true 30 years ago already! In fact, I do not think the United States has ever been a thinking country!

[@damiangriffiths7801]

The Russians have been reading their own literature pretty well for a long time, but that doesn't appear to have helped them become a democracy

[@lonelycubicle]

Feels like we are going in that direction

[@efleishermedia]

Love Bloom more every time I hear him speak. He was prophetic in ways that are only really materializing now. And he gave us Camille Paglia. Pure gratitude for this man.

[@tellemstevedave5559]

Maybe on the internet but definitely not Harry Potter.

[@yohei72]

Ha! He “gave” us Paglia? That makes sense. An even more tiresome, self-aggrandizing blowhard than he was.

[@Charlie-rh8od]

It’s incredible that we even lived at the same time as this great mind. Truly an unsung hero of consciousness, and a powerful force for good in the world.

[@martinezgerard]

He still teaches me through these videos. RIP.

[@garymelnyk7910]

How it is for me too Gerard! RIP Like Dylan, like yourself and like myself he was “looking for dignity”!

[@Vesnicie]

Dear Professor Bloom, thank you so much for all you contributed and for being one of the last to insist on true greatness in literature and in life, both public and private.

[@kelvindatson1202]

Mr bloom you're one of the most critical critic ever walk this earth. Thank you for inspiring me to not giving up on myself and thanks for helping me to see reading for what it really his. I don't know where your soul his going but I hope we meet on that beautiful shore, when the roll is called up yonder.

[@irisk.1561]

about harry potter: "In five or six years these will be period pieces also. they will be of interest to sociologists. the people who read them will not be able to remember what they read." I'm not a harry potter fan but that didn't age well.

[@allen5455]

Who remembers much, if anything, of Shakespeare?

[@serban8298]

@@allen5455 I remember a lot of stuff from Harry Potter and Shakespeare as well!

[@mbombaby]

"I'm afraid so." Love it. I recently read "Wind in the Willows." Yes...children should read it and would love it. As did I at 62 years old.

[@brandonqueen2608]

One of the few people with whom it's possible to both vehemently disagree with & admire & respect at the same time. A sign of true intelligence.

[@SehnsuchtYT]

I think Bloom is generally correct in some regards on Harry Potter, but lets his prejudice cloud his judgement. For example, in that article he makes a false claim on how many time "stretched their legs" is used. He claims dozens, but I think it was only used once. Likewise, he claims it is slop - which is a fair if mean-spirited assessment of early Harry Potter. But as the series progressed, it became increasingly complex in themes and Rowling became a better (but still flawed and vindictive) writer. Ultimately, it is still here, despite his prediction. Compare it to Twilight - another huge phenomenon amongst adolescents - which has been largely dropped now. It's not a masterpiece, but I think he should have been more clear-headed in reviewing it.

[@JBreedloaf]

I think he was spot on about the quality of Harry Potter though. It’s of the middling, grey, acceptable quality when compared to other literature including other children’s books. It’s like how Friends and The Office are the most watched tv shows but that doesn’t make them the best or highest quality. Nothing in the later books elevate it beyond what the earlier books are and the techniques Rowling used to shove meaning into the later books are pretty ham fisted (such as the deus ex machina or the deathly hallows, or Harry’s resurrection scene). It’s not Rowlings fault that the works are so popular but it doesn’t change that Harry Potter is well loved schlock. It’s cheap genre fiction that does nothing to nor does it contain any elements that elevate it beyond being something a lot of kids got into (like Pokemon.)

[@DermochelysCoriacea]

This is so enjoyable, edifying and funny. Love watching these two interact.

[@ponceperales1041]

Harold Bloom RIP (July 11, 1930 - October 14, 2019) 22:45 Charlie Rose: - What poem do you think that would be in your heart when you breathe your last breath? - Harold Bloom: “INTO MY HEART AN AIR THAT KILLS/ From yon far country blows:/ What are those blue remembered hills,/ What farms, what spires are those?/ That is the land of lost content,/ I see it shining plain,/ The happy highways where I went/ And cannot go again.” A.E. Housman

[@newyardleysinclair9960]

Poetry is so pretentious. It's completely unnecessary. If there were no poetry, nobody, other than poets and publishers, would even care

[@eS-ql7vm]

@@newyardleysinclair9960 I hope you live a long and good enough life to regret this someday

[@ruizheli1974]

@@newyardleysinclair9960 Judging from the second sentence of your reply, apart from poetry, you also find logic unnecessary.

[@mikethelma]

@@ruizheli1974 Sometimes I find such blinding ignorance and arrogance almost refreshing! LOL ;-) It is astounding that the loudest critics are often those who understand the least. I wonder if it is a distinctly American thing to go around finding truly great people to tear down.

[@ruizheli1974]

@@mikethelma Not really. You can find Chinese people posting things 5 levels dumber than this one. It's just you can't read it because of the language barrier.

[@MrUndersolo]

Used his work to finish my master’s thesis. Man, I owe him; we all do. -R.I.P., Professor

[@tobiolopainto]

I all, you all, he/she/it/one alls, we all, you all they all. All: the American verb.

[@dokidoki719]

Tobias Mostel WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

[@tobiolopainto]

@@dokidoki719 K August writes "...we all..." An American verb: To All. All of us do, would be the way to write it without 'all' being a verb.

[@MrUndersolo]

Tobias Mostel Fair point. But I am not an American, and I did not expect anyone to be so uptight about language on YT, even when discussing Dr. Bloom. Ain’t dat the truths...!

[@johannagel4520]

​@@tobiolopainto It's not a verb, it's an emphasising pronoun, and it's perfectly grammatical.

[@adyshih]

Ironically, it is the internet that I got to know Harold Bloom much better and I started to acquire his books when I tried to know more about Shakespeare, i'm so grateful to watch these interviews about him and bring me much closer to his work and beautiful mind...

[@mohitmor6764]

I went through school and 3 years of college without proper understanding what reading means. It's very common here in India everyone in school tells you what to read but never do they explain the system which must first be learned in order to understand what you read. I found a book few months back on this subject by Mortimer Adler and it really helped me to become better person. Hope the same for you guys.

[@abdulrahmanali9407]

Yes, it is true. I read it two years ago. This book is an amazing discovery

[@mikethelma]

Also, they fail to teach almost ANY skill necessary to learn. They demand that you have a poem memorized for your homework assignment ... but in all my years of school NO ONE EVER explained HOW to memorize. Incredible.

[@jimgordon6629]

I wonder if anyone has ever grasped the whole of world literature as securely as Professor Bloom. Hearing him recite those poems was a rare pleasure. I feel that Charlie Rose did an excellent job and helped Dr. Bloom fulfill his mission of better reaching the general public. Unfortunately, we are even further down the road to perdition than we were when the video was made.

[@bradleynichols4909]

I hope Hart Crane was on his spirit when he left us. Bless this good man.

[@theresahemminger1587]

I’ve read Moby Dick 5 times, twice out loud. I was over the moon about War and Peace and I also greatly enjoyed the Harry Potter books-not in the same way; but, still, they were great fun and it was, perhaps, the first time I was part of a social movement that was shared with teenagers. As for great literature, I was appalled by Cervantes when I tried to read him in my early 20’s, I quit in disgust when Sancho Panza is forced to stand unmoving by Quixote’s horse and gives in to the need to defecate and it slides down his leg. I managed in my less sensitive old age mostly because I really liked the translator, Edith Grossman. Pantagruel flooding villages with his urine put me off Rabelais forever; but, I have nothing but good to say about Balzac. For modern literature, I don’t think I’ve ever read a Booker Prize winner I didn’t like. I’ve read most of the Nobel laureates and I have currently fallen in love with Jose Saramago, the Portuguese Nobelist. I also read Science Fiction and mystery stories. I’ve been known to read comic books. To me, literature opens and broadens ones perspective of the world and forms the sense of belonging to a world larger than your own tribe. And the individual is as large as the word ‘we’ is inclusive. You two sound more elitist than literary to me and I usually love literary criticism.

[@charlesedwardandrewlincoln8181]

Love these interviews so much!

[@ponceperales1041]

29:30 HB recommends Blood Meridian (1985) by Cormac McCarthy “it seems to me the authentic American apocalyptic novel, more relevant now than when it was written” [ there are several articles on the www about this book].

[@casanovafrankenstein5228]

Great book.

[@efleishermedia]

Hesitant to say it is my "favorite" book because theres something so archetypal and terrifying about it that goes beyond the individual. It's a terror of the species hurtling through time. "...in him brews already a taste for mindless violence..." And, most prescient, "a creature that can do anything. Make a machine. A machine to make the machine. Evil to run itself a thousand years, unattended." There were echoes of Paradise Lost, Moby Dick... It is the hellscape of the West. And it's gorgeous in the way that Kubrick's The Shining was. Stephen King said that Kubrick set out to "make a movie that hurts people", and that's it's perfection. I've read Blood Meridian ten times at least, and I'll read it a hundred more.

[@Tonytony95461]

Love the table metaphor!

[@thefunisdead1574]

RIP Mr.Bloom. You were a genius at articulating genius.

[@charlesedwardandrewlincoln8181]

Returning to this wonderful video once again. From summer of 2020 when I first found it to now.

[@brianlooksaround6125]

Thank God for the sanity of this man and for his courage to speak the truth.

[@kamalpreetsingh1686]

Best discussion..... thanks for uploading.....

[@pendorran]

I found a copy of this book by accident, in one of those Little Lending Libraries. It's excellent and stimulating, even though I don't share his high regard for certain of the authors and texts he discusses. The book opens the mind in the best possible way, and reminds you of some of the things that are actually important.

[@WhiteChocolate74]

I found Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human in a lending library

[@dcdc139]

I have to disagree w/ Mr Bloom about Harry Potter and its merits as children's literature. I read them as a 12 year old, around the time this interview was taped. Although I have no desire to revisit them today, they opened for me the doors of the wider world of literature, especially as a kid growing up in a rural area in the middle of nowhere in a home where culture wasn't at the forefront of our dinner conversations.

[@bharatrai3978]

Okay for a 12 years old lad. But for 15+ lads, it is absolute rubbish.

[@JBreedloaf]

While it may have opened you up to reading, it doesn’t change what he said about it or your experience with it to say that it is trope filled slop. It has as much merit as any other children’s literature in a similar vein.

[@BLAISEDAHL96]

What a fruitful discussion. I came across a short clip (on instagram of all places) of Harold Bloom during his interview with Charlie in 94. Incredibly thought provoking.

[@spb7883]

I only know of Bloom by reputation. I haven't read a thing he wrote, and recognize that as a consequence I may qualify as one of those he bemoaned as being (not his words) a slave to the screen (be it a television screen, a film screen, or the one connected computer on which I type this). I long ago realized that sounds - music - were far more interesting to me than the written word. But I will say this: regardless of what you think about Bloom's allegiance to canon or his opinion of academia's decline, this was a man who (to my knowledge, at least) came up from a working class background through collegiate ranks and became a significant scholar. With college prices and the rise of a new bourgeois, it doesn't feel like college - especially the humanities - has a place for working people with a genuine interest in a subject. Today's critics aren't made, they're born. They're born to careerist bourgeois parents who expect little Tucker or Kirstin to be the first in everything, who make sure the silver spoons in their mouths are perpetually Sterling. Most working people in the U.S. are not interested in the arts (including literature) because they perceive these as upper class artifacts. It seems Bloom was able to see through that. I salute him for it.

[@patrickobrien8851]

When you say "working people" you must mean "working-class people", since most people in the country work, whatever their class. And I don't agree with you. The culture in general has little interest in the arts, no matter what the educational background. Speak with a lawyer today, or a doctor, or a professor, and chances are they have not read many of the classics, in any language. Philosophy will not interest them, painting or classical music often will not be of interest. And listen to the language of their discourse, and to the structure and complexity of their discourse - oftentimes it is abysmal. Yes, educational values and goals have changed, and profit - apparently - decides more than it should, as in, where is the real "public" in public education. But the final responsibility lies with the individual. There are enough tools today (despite Bloom's dismissal of the internet) that one can use to become well educated, perhaps more tools than we have had in the past. The fact that the common patois of language usage is low is really an opportunity for young people to turn the tables and become expressive and eloquent again. Is Bloom a snob? Yes. Is his canon ridiculously narrow in its purview? Yes. Is there value in what he says? Certainly. We need professors like Bloom, and we need those who will - and can - argue eloquently and substantively with him so that the net result is a more enlightened set of students, listeners, and readers. After that, as I said, it is up to the individual to further his or her own knowledge and skills in the arts.

[@spb7883]

You didn’t understand what I was trying to say. Perhaps I should be more direct. I come from a working class background. My parents didn’t save for college because they didn’t expect anyone in my family to go. I went to college and then graduate school because I had a genuine interest in the subjects I pursued. But at both levels, I couldn’t believe the lack of education among my fellow students. So few had read/listened to/seen or even heard of books/music/film/paintings that I had sought out ON MY OWN years earlier. What I was trying to say about Bloom is that he didn’t let his working class background get in his way, either. So it sound to me like you and I are together on this.

[@patrickobrien8851]

@@spb7883: Right. Being the first to college from a given family is a big deal, and makes it more likely that other family members will follow - so kudos to you for doing that. Good role models are a big part of why some areas have a tradition of education, and some areas do not. Learning for its own sake, as well as for the benefits of supposedly better employment, are reasons enough to extend learning after high school. We need to foster this more in our culture.

[@spb7883]

Monsieur Tarzan Fortunately, I don’t. But perhaps you didn’t pick up on my speaking sarcastically when I wrote that. They are “born” not in the sense we usually think (i.e., having natural talent). Rather, it’s their advantage and social/financial class that “births” them into a world wherein this is EXPECTED of them. Nobody expects the child of a garment worker to become a scholar. THAT was my point.

[@spb7883]

Patrick O'Brien I agree. We don’t, of course. Part of that - a large part - is a consequence of popular culture and its affect. But part of it is also due to class snobbery.

[@appidydafoo]

Bless your heart Harold Bloom, you saved my brain from the gutter

[@BLAISEDAHL96]

A gripping conversation, I’m listening to the video for a second time.

[@lightwishatnight]

Wow, what a controversial, interesting and necessary dissection of today's literature. Worth talking about. Thank you.

[@serban8298]

Stupid and unnecessary**!

[@randywhite3947]

@@serban8298 why?

[@serban8298]

@@randywhite3947 Because this dude clearly didn't know what he was talking about when he was criticising Harry Potter and Stephen King books!The man was a great mind, but in the same mind, an elitist snob!

[@ethanfleisher1910]

I don't think he's being elitist at all. When I was 12, Harry Potter was great. It spoke to my 12 year old heart. By the time I was 15, I was reading McCarthy and Faulkner and O'Connor. I realized very quickly there is a vast difference between schmaltz like Harry Potter and the great works of literary fiction. They're not even of the same worlds. Just because people read and love Harry Potter doesn't make it similar to Shakespeare. HP is leisure reading. The great works are timeless while preserving the time in which they were wrote. They preserve the language of the time while pressing the modern English language further. They do the same for the cultures that created them. They expand our worlds, act as bridges to the past and will do into the future- assuming people keep reading them. The problem with Harry Potter isn't that it is crap, because it's not. It's a great kids book. But it's pathetic that so many millions of adults openly admit it's the only book they've ever read- and we all have to admit that most people wouldn't have read them had the movies not been made. All the memes I see talking about what Harry Potter teaches us are cute and infantile. That's how I would describe Harry Potter in one word- it's cute. It's not transcendent in the way that the great works of literature are. Read Moby Dick and then read HP and the Sorcerers Stone. Then read Blood Meridian and then read HP and the Chamber of Secrets. They're not even in the same league, comparing them is demeaning to ourselves as readers and demeaning to the authors. Moby Dick and Blood Meridian are two of my all time favorite works. They struck me to my soul in a truly transcendent way. Harry Potter? It made me feel good to be a teen- because it was written for teens. The fact that adults cling to it so fervently shows how infantile Millennials really are.

[@usinglogic]

Ethan Fleisher the affirmation of naturally forming hierarchies won’t garner you popularity and you cannot survive in academia pointing out such Jazz. Easier to pander to the victimhood narrative.

[@ethanfleisher1910]

@@usinglogic ummm I'm a little confused by this comment but I think I agree?

[@clemandax9242]

Ethan Fleisher he’s saying that universities would hate you for saying that some work is better than others

[@davida.rosales6025]

And I would also add that Shakespeare or Faulkner and the like are not valuable JUST because they preserve an idea of what their time or culture was like: they actually provide immense value and intelligence beyond that.

[@serban8298]

Let's say I somewhat agree with you in the sense that I'm also disappointed by the fact that people neglect classics these days, but do you really find the sacrifices in Harry Potter infantile?Do you think that the concept of Horcruxes, objects that preserve a fragment of one's soul after commiting a crime, because with every crime your soul is slowly degraded, is infantile?Are these 2 infantile?Not really!Harry Potter may not be a difficult read and yes, there are objectively better works(Shakespeare's plays, for example), but Harry Potter is not all that childish!It became more mature as the audience was maturing at the time Rowling was writing the series!

[@skiphoffenflaven8004]

The advocacy here is still much needed as I find our current students' lack of long-lasting substance to be that like a vacuum in the midst of a torrent of possibility.

[@idklol4197]

harold is proven wrong by the tens of millions of people that still love harry potter twenty years on. It has not been forgotten as he proclaimed it would be

[@Abhishek-fe3zs]

It's the same generation that grew up with it lmao, nobody will remember it in 50 years

[@faff6097]

​@Abhishek-fe3zs that's actually not true at all

[@user-3282]

Nope. Bloom is right.

[@Draxtor]

Harold Bloom is amazing and I completely forgot that he dissed Harry Potter!!! Thank you 🙏

[@connorwilliamson3]

I still think sitting down to read Harry Potter is better than mindlessly scrolling through social media….

[@elliotwilson-woodrow2764]

Yeah but he hasn’t seen that yet, I think he would agree

[@eduardosturla]

Harold Bloom in the year 2000 was neck deep in the culture wars. His comparison of bad literature and art with a badly made table is worth gold. A sober voice for these confusing times.

[@ctrl_altesc]

I would what he would think about the current cultural wars that are even more ruthless than when he was still giving talks and writing

[@thegirlwholeftthefridgeopen]

Bloom might be a little weird but there is truth when he mentions the dumbing down of education. Just recently graduated, I felt that I learned from my own selfmade curriculum than the classes you pay a lot for. College has turned more into a fast food: get in and get out quick and between our winter and summer breaks we forget everything. There is more to discuss and would like to chat with anyone about their educational experience and how they percieve what os currently going on in American education

[@indialavoyce95]

Nikolai Lipnicky I agree

[@ericsierra-franco7802]

There is a lot of truth in what Bloom is saying, regardless of how one feels about the man.

[@carlodave9]

Dang. Wanted him to speak more about Dickens who, though incredibly popular, was considered simplistic and mediocre by academic critics of his day, much like Rowling and King are today. Bloom dodged the obvious implication. 9:52.

[@RichardStiennon]

I thought this was exactly the counterpoint that Rose was making in asking the question!

[@davida.rosales6025]

King is not simplistic. Actually he is convoluted, messy, and quite frankly, very random. And I highly doubt J.K. Rowling is the future Charles Dickens... Dickens may have been simplistic, but he wasn't a bag of politically-correct cliches and safe "fantasy".

[@Laocoon283]

Just because Dickens went on to be considered something more then pop culture does not mean that every book that is currently considered just pop culture will go on to later be considered literature. I don't think he missed that implication I think he thinks Rowling will never be compared to Dickens.

[@joachimjustinmorgan4851]

I taught 5th grade for a year. 1 hour per day. We spent about 30 minutes of that time every day just reading the classics (age 8-12 classics. We typically used an audio book and read along. Before the reading I spent 5 minutes on grammar, and 5 minutes on vocabulary they would see in that days readings. Then we spent about 15 minutes on reviewing and interpreting the information we read. After each book there was a couple classes dedicated to writing papers. There was separate 30 minute 3 x/week class dedicated to spelling and writing as well. I was fun for me and the kids, and I felt just reading a lot of classical books was really helpful.

[@hogsbelly63]

Spot on. Thank you

[@ReadingAdam]

The quotes around 13:00 are interesting, where reading, the solitary activity, is primarily time spent with yourself, learning about yourself, discovering yourself. Quite true. The book turns us inward, but I do think there can be too much of it. I wish the interviewer had asked Bloom to clarify how many books he was expecting his students to come to school having read.

[@Unconcerned_Orange]

I'm here because i have a literary theory exam to pass. But I find Bloom quite interesting

[@Monkwhispers]

Thank you!

[@dave-oh3549]

"Tyranny of the visual". Beautiful!

[@thereversealmightystudios8978]

Found out about him just yesterday. I know...What rock have I been living under!? But his writings have got me hooked. What a gem!

[@MAFion]

We've lived through a revolution not only of culture but of human consciousness in our own time when our text-based society gave way to the ubiquity of mass media. It's changed the way we think, reflect, act and behave. Bloom here, at the turn of the millennium no less, sings the last lament to an age gone by, an age when people had the capacity, depth, and attention span to read the classics like Moby Dick, War and Peace, etc. Google is wonderful but after years of clicking and scrolling and swiping I really wonder if I have it in me to make it through The Count of Monte Cristo.

[@farawayeye8423]

This ex-bookworm sadly relates

[@lonelycubicle]

I’ve read several articles about how it takes effort to get back one’s attention span.

He is so PROFOUNDLY human!

[@SongvilayFilms]

Wow this man is amazing

[@AnaLuizaHella]

I didn't read or watched "Lord of the rings" and never will. Bloom... I know you're having a lot of fun in the library you have now. Love and you'll be always on our hearts. 🌹 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@serban8298]

@@JoelLopez-vs5is Because she's a snob, just like Bloom!That's why!

[@yohei72]

(eye roll) Don’t cut yourself on that edge. Man, Bloom’s fans are one of the best critiques of Bloom.

[@shabirmagami146]

amazing ....brilliant man ....Bloom 💌💌💌💌

[@AishwaryaPratimRabha]

harold knew

[@sebolddaniel]

I have read Don Quixote a number of times in Spanish. I can only boast that Cervantes and I both have sailed the Mediterranean and we both set sail for the first time from Naples, though not together. My Navy ship almost sailed straight into the coast of Algeria once where I swore I saw a young Moorish woman escaping in a boat from her father's castle with some rapscallions on their way to Spain

[@gobbagu]

God bless Harold Bloom

[@fabianapereira8631]

"We ignore the classics at the expense of our own potential debasement" 😂😍

[@david-pb4bi]

So true, 71 now my children got me on the internet 10 years ago and I stopped reading, can’t remember what I watched last week but can still remember what I read thirty years ago (funny can’t remember were I put my car keys).

[@ctrl_altesc]

Ending with the Cormac Mccarthy Blood Meridian plug, what an absolute chad. Blood Meridian truly is one of if not the greatest product of American literature in the past 100 years.

[@hammothyst6005]

'Ok Bloomer'

[@1bluehammock]

Well hey in all seriousness if the next generation wakes up to true aesthetic value and breaks the magic of technocratic led society, maybe one day in the not too distant future we will see a "Bloomer" class peoples...

[@skiphoffenflaven8004]

Hehe

[@SP-qi8ur]

@@1bluehammock What do you consider is the opposition between a technocratically led society and the pursuit of aesthetic principles?

[@1bluehammock]

@@SP-qi8ur a difference in moral values and social agendas

[@marizzz1872]

@@1bluehammock I’m pretty sure my generation is radical against most factors, pushing towards new forms of values and morals that is kind and understanding to all types of people. But also, very distant from another.

[@shanecadden7914]

His critiques of the internet are very interesting from a modern viewpoint. The endless surfacing Bloom references, has definitely led to issues of information overload and questionable reliability for sources of news and information. However, I do love the internet, I think it is a great resource for discussions (like this), lectures, books, languages learning and all the classics that he is advocating for (public domain, you get find a copy with a Google search). I think the internet can be a great tool but it depends on how you use it.

[@syourke3]

A hero to all those who value great literature.

[@vinm300]

9:00 pop culture, fashion books (eg Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code)

[@stevendurham9996]

My kind of Professor!

[@graham6132]

Hey, I'd take Harry Potter as prescribed reading in schools nowadays compared to what the syllabi are starting to look like: "Harry, the Non-Binary, Trans-Species Unicorn goes to the Zoo "

[@CesarClouds]

I love Mr Bloom. R.I.P.

[@oyvey9463]

I discovered the work of Mr. Bloom right after he passed away. I had been considering pursuing my masters in English for a while, and reading him and seeing these videos persuaded me to do just that. I wish he was here so I could tell him he changed my life. RIP, sir.

[@aadityasrivastava7112]

He was right about the "The gray ocean of emptiness"

[@jjjjj-vs8pw]

I'd say it's the only thing he was wrong about here. The internet is the opposite of a gray ocean of emptiness; that's what's dangerous about it

[@MrZanctum]

Harold Bloom is a great mind and very intelligent man, but just because something is mainstream doesn't make it garbage. Most men of his stature in the literary circle want people to read literature, but as soon as millions of people begin to read literature, like HP, it is immediately considered garbage. Charles Dickens was described as a hack back in his own time, but now is one of the three most important writers in the English language after Joyce and Shakespeare. Bloom should watch what he says; he has already been proven wrong countless times.

[@concars1234]

Rowling is a hack though

[@davida.rosales6025]

Well, he did not say that anything is garbage because it is mainstream. In fact, he specifically addressed your concern and pointed out that both Shakespeare and Dickens were immensely popular in their own times. Also, Bloom himself says that he will be wrong about predictions, that this is inevitably part of the process. All that said, that does not make Harry Potter good literature, and it does not take a Harold Bloom to recognize it for what it is: a boring, endless string of cliches, not only literary but of thought. It's basically people-pleasing candy for normies.

[@serban8298]

@@davida.rosales6025 You're both dead wrong!

[@davida.rosales6025]

@@serban8298 you seem to care a lot about this.

[@serban8298]

@@davida.rosales6025 Of course I do, because you all snobs are copy pasting the same shallow speeches about authors like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, both being great writers of our time!They don't write books full of clichees such as most of the romance authors and many of you are simply oblivious to this fact!

[@mahdiyar.ma8809]

Beautiful TNX a lot

[@859902]

I have re read very few novels but am going back to Blood Meridian very soon

[@donaldwhittaker7987]

Right on!!!

[@thedumbguncollector5546]

29:46 for cool discussion of Blood Meridian

[@CleanFamilyVideos]

Sleep eternally and enlighten the beast/angel over that endless chess match, sweet prince. You were right about Miss Lonelyhearts. One of the best.

[@cateliper3588]

Anyone else crack up at his expression when he calls Shakespeare "a syphilitic" ??

[@kpimkpim349]

I can't, for the life of me, see how Tom O Bedlam is about 'a life unlived'.

[@jackwalter5970]

Brilliant.

[@ecaepevolhturt]

2:20 - Without an educated populace you can not have a democracy (Gore Vidal). When Trump became president all I could think was this line.

[@kiyoaki1985]

I agree with him in principle, if not in the specific choices he makes for good literature. We should absolutely distinguish between shit, mediocrity and greatness, but we should welcome lesser known works into the latter category as well as older works with a lot of staying power. His canon has little room for hidden gems and assumes too much that great works will be automatically recognised and remain recognised through history, this too takes work and a willingness to go off the beaten path. Of course, "off the beaten path" does not mean reading crap like Harry Potter or Dan Brown or anything from the shiny part of the bookstore.

[@isaacemanuel152]

I just have to say that to come to this comment section after mindlessly scrolling through the dregs of social media comment sections is a breath of fresh air. Most of the people here are having discussions in long, multiple paragraph entries with both dignity and respect for one another. It is a shame that this sort of thing is a rarity on the internet to the extent that it is surprising to find even a single video where that is main mode of discussion in the comments below. Perhaps it is pretentious of me to say this, but I really don’t care. Godspeed to all of you, I wish you well in all of your endeavors.

[@rodrigocampos1225]

Charlie reminds me so much of Bryan Cranston. In appearance, voices and way of speaking.

[@therealbs2000]

1:00 damn that was a crazy ass canned laugh track

[@thoughtfuldevil6069]

9:40 Best laugh I've had in a looooooooong time!

[@thoughtfuldevil6069]

@@JoelLopez-vs5is Stephen King has fans going back forty years and the HP reunion was literally yesterday xD

[@j.p.kempkes5103]

"Blood Meridian" - my polestar...I literally hallucinated reading it

[@leventetakacs1641]

Reading that novel is truly a psychedelic experience- it's like a rather scary trip

[@kamuelalee]

All the Pretty Horses!

[@danasheys9300]

Blood meridian 3 a magnificent book read it twice.... so far

[@ericsierra-franco7802]

Blood Meridian is my favorite book! Awe inspiring!

[@ericsierra-franco7802]

@@kamuelalee Good book. The first of the Border Trilogy. But Blood Meridian is far superior.

[@clemfarley7257]

A debt of gratitude. RIP.

[@gaspardpi]

Almost all literature professors consider Bloom an outdated hack these days. This is amidst classes at the 4000 level about children's books like antiracist baby and "allegorical" graphic novels about history through some "lens". I think that says a lot about the quality of the literature departments at the moment.

[@janetkenyon2167]

I agree

[@ericsierra-franco7802]

Exactly! Says more about his critics than it does about Bloom. Bloom wanted people to read the best literature. He didn't want that list to include books added merely for reasons of diversity or other social and/or political considerations. The Classics are referred to as such for a reason.

[@timholbrook7671]

Totally agree or concur with Mr. Franco. He has touched the center of Bloom's purpose. Franco has seen the heart of Bloom's purpose. To you, thank you, indeed. Loved the 'chemistry 'that Rose and Bloom publicly displayed. RIP, Harold

[@gkissel1]

Wow..., just, wow.

[@calledmoe]

8:18 They start talking about Harry Potter

[@mikec6733]

I'm going to start reading the Classics. Oh wait, my NBA team has a game tonight. 😬

[@watershedbarbie9685]

I read Dostoyivsky when I was 17, and again in my sixties. Boy, did he learn a lot in the interim, lol.

[@angelrojo6466]

Brilliant. Thank you Mr. Bloom for everything.

[@WillN2Go1]

Interesting. Bloom has a lot in common with Mike Tyson. Both are or were heavyweight champions of the world. You will not win an argument against the 'Western Canon' of works as argued by Bloom. You may get a bunch of people to agree with you about the 'old dead white European guys', but that doesn't mean you'd be right. More than likely in the back and forth both sides would miss noticing that Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is a better written book than any by Charles Dickens and that Dickens stated he hadn't read it, wouldn't and didn't need to; but then based on what he'd heard about Jane Eyre, wrote David Copperfield. The problem gets down to which 12 books are children going to be forced to read as they go through middle and high school and which few dozen more will be in the 100 level Freshman and Sophomore English classes in college. The issue is not which books, or who gets to choose, but how few books do we have to read? Read as much as you can. Read the dead white guys, read the dead white women, read the brown and black and yellow and LGBTQ... What I think Bloom can never understand is the world outside the great works. That's okay. If you look at literature the way say the Beatles, or the Maytells, or Hugh Masakella or any musician who's been popular or is trying to be. As they learned more about music did they just work their way towards Mozart, Bach, Beethoven? I'm sure everyone of them had some classical pieces they liked, but they pursued what they were passionate about. Reggae music I was floored when I learned came out of AM radio country music picked up in Jamaica. Eric Clapton, Tom Jones(!), Van Morrison, Keith Richards loved American blues, learned as many licks as they could, made some of their own, and we called the translation of Mississippi and Chicago blues: The British Invasion. So when some old pasty guy (like me) says, "This week we're going to read....." Read it. Skip a few hours of staring at your phone or drinking beer and read something else as well. Me? I tried for years to read Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf. Austen, even on audio book would put me to sleep. The movies were good, very funny-- and those jokes aren't Hollywood or Masterpiece Theater, those are Jane's jokes. I finally got over my inability to not nod off and really appreciate Austen. Mrs Dalloway is about a character as opposite and uninteresting to me as it may be possible to be, and yet the book about her is wonderful. But so is Lu Xin, Zora Neal Hurston, Marlon James, Chinhua Achebe, Chimamanda Ingochi Adiche, Zadie Smith.... I love Mozart, Bach, the B52s, Punk, the Beatles, George Jones. The answer to the question about which reading list is best is not which, but more. And if you get to something like George Elliot's Middlemarch and think it total bunk? It just might be. You don't have to say nice things about it because you're supposed to. I think you'll have a sense when you're reading something that you find uninteresting that maybe you're just missing something, or maybe it is just an old turd. I hated the Great Gatsby, read it four times, hated it four times. I was substituting for an English teacher, that book was the assignment. I mentioned that I hated it, hated everybody in the book. He said, you're not supposed to like anyone in the book, they're all liars, cheats, flakes.... Really? I read it again, hated it again, but understood why. No one is honest, no one acts honorably. I heard someone, who should know better, "I named my son Nick, after my favorite character in my favorite book, the Great Gatsby..." Really? As a teacher we'd get asked as icebreakers before some pointless meeting, "What book or movie inspired you to become a teacher?" I'd always say, Muriel Sparks, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. No one ever got the joke. You'll have to read it to get the joke. Walter Mosley said in the 1980s, "The most dangerous thing you can do is to teach a child to read, because once he starts reading, you can never control his mind." Nobody reads this stuff, right?

[@Monsterassassin3]

Im confused, are you a professor?

[@SocratesAlexander]

Now I'm reading Western Canon from a Turkish translation and most of the time I have no idea what he is talking about but still, I enjoy it and I feel as if I can see what he is trying to convey to me. He writes with so enthusiastic and instinctive style.

[@markhenderson3771]

24:00 What are the four or five reasons for great literature 1) the unlived life 2)