Literature and art talk ｜ Lonely as a value position

In Harold Bloom's book "Western Code: Great Writers and Immortal works", you often see some non -concealed comparisons: "Except for Shakespeare, Joe is the most outstanding English writer. "," He can be said to be the only person in Western classics that can be comparable to Dante and Shakespeare. " "Perhaps James is enough to compare with James, Tolstoy, George Eliot, Prince and Joyce."

To be honest, I don't like this expression. Perhaps, people who are accustomed to gentleness and diverse coexistence will not like so hard, full of subjective colors. After all, they are easy to remind people of some horrible character, and at the same time they seem to put literature and art in the kilo scale, as if they can really distinguish accurate data and weight. However, the most embarrassing thing is that this comparison is reminiscent of some unpleasant ethical predicament: just like we are facing the parties and publicly evaluate who is beautiful and ugly -in daily life, it is extremely stupid, it is extremely stupid, it is extremely stupid. It is also a very impolite behavior, although there is always a ruler that measures beauty and ugliness in our hearts.

In some cases, the reason why we say conscience is "hypocritical politely", which is an essential "good faith lie" in daily life. To put it bluntly, it is a basic life skills. However, Bloom hates hypocrisy like Nietzsche. It is said that people are afraid of comparison and competition because they are weak. "Strong people" are not afraid. Bluum's straightforwardness is a bit explicit: "Not the triple question of competition -superior, inferior to or equal to answering, you will not know aesthetic value."

In the center of the "classic" problem, Bloom is undoubtedly one of the protagonists of this debate. He is an uncompromising researcher, but this "chaos" has shaped him into an restless "resistance", not the "defending leader". He did not agree with the point of view of Marxist, but he quoted the famous saying of Marxist critic Gruch Marx as a motto: "No matter what it is, I will oppose it!"

This is a wonderful irony. This era has created Bloom's role status, but he never agrees with the classics of this era. He would rather spend time instead of the times: "The prediction of the classics requires the two generations after the death of the writer to be confirmed."

In the book "Western Code", he borrowed Vico's rough division of the times, and the purpose was only one

Anxie -style reincarnation prediction: Every new era of divine rights always appears after a chaos. The reason for his selection of writers to be selected for the Western Code is only "their lofty and representativeness."

In 1930, Bloom was born in a Jewish family in East Broms, New York City. In his early years, he followed Romantic researchers Abrams, and later studied new criticism at Yale University. Based on amazing talent and diligence, he obtained a doctorate degree in literature at the age of 25. He stayed at Yale University to teach, and he has never left Yale since he has been for nearly half a century. In an interview, he said: "I have a soft spot for New Heisa." Later, he became a lecture professor at the Starlin discipline of the school and was elected as an academician of the American Academy of Arts and Humanities. The road is still smooth. Of course, because of a fierce debate with the enemy, and the unique academic style, he also laughed that he was a "academic tramp".

Bloom is a high -yield writer, including monographs, plus those who wrote and recommended literary works, such as the "Chelsea House Book Series", which is said to be more than 600, which is really incredible. Since published the first book "The Myth Creation of Shirley" in 1959, Bloom, who has been more than 80 years old, still works hard, including "Emergency Influence: A Poetry Theory" in 1973, 1975 "Mistake The Map of Reading ", 1982" Competition: Amendment to Amendmentism ", 1991" J's Book ", 1992" Religion in the United States: the emergence of the post -Christian nation " "Works", 1998 "Shakespeare: Human Creation", "How to Read, Why Read" in 2000, "Genius" in 2002, and the recent new book "Introduction to Affected: Literature as a lifestyle", and so on.

Since its release in the Western Code in 1994, Bloom has been worried about the decline of classics and degradation of reading. However, this is an impression that is easy to misunderstand, thinking that he is a "literary guard" who is easy to be excited and cynical. In fact, what really establishes his academic status is poetic comments, and his book "Anxiety of Influence: A Poetry Theory" that he proposed the theory of original literary criticism. "Using a small book to knock on the nerves of everyone." Although he is still active now, people still divide his academic career into four stages: early romantic poetry criticism, the 1970s' anti -style poetry influence Theory, religious research in the 1980s, and the defense since the 1990s. In a conversation, he said: "For me, these four stages are quite suitable."

Therefore, it is too excited. In order to defend the classics, it is not sarcastic to ridicule opponents, or Bloom in the last stage. Despite anxiety and hatred, it is this old man who is full of debate style to win the most readers in his academic career. It can even be said that this is the stage of fighting for more readers for himself. Open the first translation of Chinese in 1989, "Anxiety of Influence", which is priced at 5.8 yuan. In the preface of the translator, you will see a strange comment today: "In order to compete with the previous literary criticism of the people,下，以达到一鸣惊人的目的，布鲁姆有意识地使用许多深奥莫测的'玄语言'，企图以晦涩的文风独树一帜而取胜。因此，他的著作令许多英美的大学生也望而却步。”而今天， Bloom is not only a star writer in the United States, but also in China, and readers are very crowded. His works are huge, and it is said that the "How to read, why Reading" published in 2000 has more than $ 1 million in the version of the United States. The works such as "Western Code", "Shakespeare: Human Creation", "Genius" and other works are also a version of reproduction, winning countless readers. And his language is no longer "obscure", but is known for its smoothness and beauty. Therefore, for today's Bloom, it is difficult for you to understand why some people use the words such as loneliness, Don Quixote, and edge to describe him. However, this may be as normal as the expensive furniture from Edward W. Saisde's house, and it is said to be

"Lonely" people can also be infinitely beautiful.

Actually, there are more difficult contradictions: he advocates that reading is a practice of loneliness and freedom, and it has nothing to do with education, relaxing, or eliminating social sins. The ultimate purpose is to "face greatness", However, he won countless "ordinary readers" to "expand his lonely survival"; he felt that he had encountered the worst era, but it was this era that made him fame and gave him good luck; Very high, believe in talent, or the elite theory of genius.

But in a democratic or chaotic era, countless readers dumped him; he said fiercely and regarded his debate opponents as "hate schools", including new historicalism and deconstruction of feminism, Marxism, and blessing. Wait, but the most "resentment" of this era is actually himself. How to understand the set of things that look like contradictions around Bloom?

In 2011, because of the introduction of the Chinese version of "How to Read, Why Read", many people noticed that Terry Igerton's book review "The Crack of Bloom" on this book. With Marxist aesthetic, Iglton, of course, did not conceal him, saying that he was mediocre, boring and cheap. However, this book review first affirmed that Bloom was once a "interesting critic." In fact, as early as the "Twenty Century Western Literature Theory" published in 1983, Iglton once highly evaluated Bloom's poetic criticism theory: "Bloom is a prophetic spokesperson for modern creative imagination ... "

Of course, as the enemy of Bloom, Iglton's comments were not credible. However, it is very clear that Bloom's once is very different from now, and what caused it is no longer the disagreement between the enemy's views, but anger. The so -called Bloom's "present" is actually "the defense of the formation since the 1990s". This stage is the stage where he has won the most readers, and he has begun to debate. stage. At this stage, the core issue is of course the argument about the "classic" issue. The core text is counted as the "Western Code" published in 1994.

"Western Code" studied 26 writers, and listed the classic bibliography of up to 40 pages (July 2011) in the appendix behind the book. However, this book is not a classic work worth reading for the positive answer, but to study the reason why the classic is classic. For the answer to this question, Bloom did not break with his previous criticism theory, but still the continuation of previous confrontation criticism theory or amendmentism theory. The discussion still revolves around strangeness, anxiety, late, challenges, misunderstandings, and misunderstandings. These concepts. These theories and concepts have been repeated countless times, and they are no longer embarrassed. In the discussion of the classic issues, the reason why the classics are classic is always because of the strangeness of the aesthetic value of the work itself: "This is an originality that cannot be assimilated, or we are completely we entirely Agree and no longer be regarded as heresy. "

However, the key to the Western Code is not his theory continuation, otherwise it is just the repetition of Bloom's previous works. The key to this book is that Bloom has since been involved in the secular debate: he began to satire to muddy and degrade his opponents, and began to criticize this era fiercely. If he said that his previous theoretical writings and concepts just made him look lonely in this era, then from this book, he turned loneliness into a certain posture, and loneliness began to be a value position.

What is this position? It is not special: claiming to surpass the left and right -in fact, if you are slightly familiar with the ins and outs of the "classic" problem, you will find that except for the left wing of the "hate school" by Bloom, there is a high -profile and clear political declaration, Including the classic defenders of the right, or John Georori, who advocates the theory of "cultural capital" (his book "Cultural Capital -Classic Construction of thesis"), has not clearly recognized the so -called political position. However, it is clear that what kind of political stance does Bloom tend to be. The key is that we can clarify that "reading is a lonely practice" actually has too many self -deception. In a rational era, it is too mysterious and puzzling. At this point, I will be more inclined to Iglton's frankness: there is no need to pull political force into the theory of literature, it is there from the beginning. Or, we can quote the era of Max Weber: the dominance of various fields, the dominance of various values, fighting each other, and cannot be solved -no one can pretend to be innocent. As a mysterious literary experience, loneliness is said to need more courage in this era, but if it is just a way to avoid the "struggle of the gods" in this era, then it will have a criticized " Cowardly "is no different.

The skeleton of "Western Code" is Vico, but the soul is Nietzsche. Bloom is very familiar with the death of God, multiple gods, resentment, slave morality and master's morality, the will of power, conflict, and so on. Shakespeare is God in Bloom's mind. It creates us and constantly explained us. After him, literature is that the strong man continues to "to the prestigious giants with great perseverance to the prestigious giant to die." In addition, he opposed the "hatred school" expansion classic efforts: "Expanding the classics is just an attempt to reject some better and even the best writers." - This criticism and Nietzsche's criticism of slave morality against the masses. The weak, cowardly people (black, women, underlying class) replaced well, powerful, and excellent literature into "junk literature" in the name of sympathy or idealism.

However, Bloom is unlikely to have the lonely experience of Nietzsche. In my opinion, his loneliness claims, in the "Western Code", is very ironic with his debate opponents from the same motivation: resentment -rejection of the times, hatred for debate opponents.尼采在描述自己的孤独时，喜欢引用一句来自《经集》的诗句：“我四处徘徊，像一头犀牛那般地孤独。”布鲁姆承继了尼采的诸多观念，不过这纯粹的孤独体验， He was difficult to succeed.

Article Source: Economic Observation News

Image source: Tuwa Creative

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