Tag Archives: Harold Bloom

Bunyan and Others and Me: Vicarious Bookshelf Friendship and a Jazz Hands Theory of Reading

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Brenton Dickieson

I have been quite open about the fact that I have had some difficulty finding true sympathy with John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. I even went so far as to admit that the text at one time had been for … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged A Pilgrim's Regress, Auerbach, C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Dante, Enid Blyton, George MacDonald, Harold Bloom, Huckleberry Finn, Jane Eyre, John Bunyan, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, literary friendship, Little Women, Louisa May Alcott., Mark Twain, Middlemarch, Milton, mimesis, Prince Edward Island, Spenser, The Allegory of Love, The Land of Far-Beyond, The Pilgrim's Progress | 9 Comments

My Foolish Wisdom about Don Quixote, Urban Tuxedo Cat, and Edith Grossman’s Excellent Translation, with a Note from Harold Bloom Beyond the Grave

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Brenton Dickieson

I have finally completed Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’ The Ingenious Gentleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha. It is my first time completing this classic of Western literature, except for all of those other times I’ve read it. As I have … Continue reading →

Posted in Memorable Quotes, Reflections, Reviews | Tagged cat poetry, Cervantes, Don Quixote, Edith Grossman, Harold Bloom, Poetry, The Western Canon | 11 Comments

The Doom and Destiny of Tolkien’s Chaucer Research: A Note on John M. Bowers, Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer (2019)

Posted on November 3, 2021 by Brenton Dickieson

Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer is a book about a book that was doomed from the start. As I have been preparing for a Canterbury Tales section in a class I’m teaching, I have been using this recent winner of the Mythopoeic … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged Beowulf, C.S. Lewis, Chaucer, Christopher Tolkien, Harold Bloom, J.R.R. Tolkien, John M. Bowers, Middle English, The Canterbury Tales, The History of Middle-earth, Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer | 21 Comments

Harold Bloom and “The Western Canon”: A Note on His Death

Posted on October 18, 2019 by Brenton Dickieson

I received news this week that Harold Bloom has died. Bloom (1930-2019) was an avid reader, a rapid writer, and a penetrating critic whose essays and books on literature are breathtaking in scope and exemplary in their attention to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Original Research, Reviews, Thoughtful Essays | Tagged books, C.S. Lewis, canon, Charles Dickens, Charles Williams, Dante, fantasy, feminism, Harold Bloom, J.R.R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy, literary criticism, literary history, Milton, mimesis, Reading, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, The Western Canon, Ursula K. LeGuin | 21 Comments

What Counts as an Old Book? A Response by Dale Nelson

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Brenton Dickieson

This is a response to “What Counts as a Classic? A Conversation with C. S. Lewis and Goodreads,” a blog post I wrote on 18 Dec. 2018 centred on images like the one above. There was quite a conversation that … Continue reading →