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 | 19 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 | 20 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 →

Posted in Guest Blogs | Tagged Arthuriana, Bible, C.S. Lewis, canon, Cultural Capital, Dale Nelson, Harold Bloom, John Guillory, literature, The Western Canon, University | 35 Comments

Resources on David Lyndsay’s Cult Classic “A Voyage to Arcturus”

Posted on April 16, 2018 by Brenton Dickieson

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a scathing review of David Lindsay’s trippy SF morality tale, A Voyage to Arcturus (1920). C.S. Lewis loved this book–and so does genius actor Paul Giamatti, according to the rather peculiar, subtly hypnotic, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Fictional Worlds, Memorable Quotes, News & Links | Tagged A Voyage to Arcturus, C.S. Lewis, David Lindsay, Harold Bloom, J.R.R. Tolkien, Paul Giamatti, Philip Pullman, The Western Canon, Vakula | 9 Comments

9/11 and Mythology

Posted on September 11, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

Based on the number of brochures that governments and non-profit groups produce, I suspect that most people are under the delusion that people operate out of beliefs. Know→Believe→Do, this is the way that the brochure-makers and moral pundits understand the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged 9/11, conspiracy theory, Ex Machina, Harold Bloom, Harvey Co, Mad Max, myth, Mythologies, mythology, Reinhold Niebuhr, Roland Barthes, terrorism, The Martian, The Revenant, Tiannaman Square Massacre, Tom Hanks, Wild | 17 Comments

Stephen King and the Genre of Genius

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

This year for my Stickin’ Huge Awesome Novel Winter Awesome Read (SHANWAR), I chose Stephen King’s The Stand (1978) I have never read it before and I don’t think I have ever had a conversation with someone about it. Still, … Continue reading →

Posted in On Writing, Reflections, Reviews, Thoughtful Essays | Tagged 'Salem's Lot, Carrie, fantasy, genre, Harold Bloom, IT, literature, Margaret Atwood, On Writing, Science Fiction, speculative fiction, Stephen King, The Green Mile, The Shining, The Stand | 26 Comments

New Approaches to Academic Writing: An Unusual Marking Note for a Good Student

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Brenton Dickieson

I am at that time of year when the marking pile on my desk is higher than my laptop screen. Like a fool, each year, I go into the marking expecting great things. So far, I have never had a … Continue reading →

Posted in On Writing, Thoughtful Essays | Tagged academic, Alice Walker, autoethnography, B.R. Myers, Christopher Hitchens, Corey Olsen, Dorothy L. Sayers, Flannery O'Connor, George Orwell, Harold Bloom, John Updike, literary criticism, Margaret Atwood, Marilynne Robinson, research, Roxane Gay, Slavoj Žižek, Stanley Fish, Teaching, Terry Eagleton, theology, Ursula K. Le Guin, Virginia Woolf, writing | 15 Comments

Why C.S. Lewis Says My Reading Program is Wrong, or What Cheese has to do with Reading

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Brenton Dickieson

This year on A Pilgrim in Narnia we have been doing some thinking about programs for reading great books: Why I Read C.S. Lewis Chronologically How You Can Read C.S. Lewis Chronologically The Canon of Fantasy Literature Harold Bloom’s “The Western … Continue reading →