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Harold Bloom Has Died

nytimes.com

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Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#31

Post by master-litty »

jerf wrote: post #7
jchallis wrote: post #2

I used to tutor math and physics near Bloom's office in Timothy Dwight. My main association with the man is that he would come on strong to every female English graduate student he could reach. When #MeToo first came to national consciousness about men in arts and letters who completely abused their position to take advantage of women, I thought of Harold. How could these giants of arts and letters abuse so many? Bec…

You shouldn't speak ill of the dead like this. It is uncouth and crass for all sorts of reasons. It doesn't mean you need to forget or ignore it, it just means... today is not the day. More days will come.

I understand your sentiment but to clarify, that is indeed ignoring the bad behavior. It's placation, even if temporary.

And it's polite. There's nothing wrong with keeping these thoughts to yourself. With rare exception, it certainly doesn't harm anyone.

But when a person leaves this world, they take all their good and all their bad with them -- I think it's acceptable to acknowledge what we are left with. To some, the striking acknowledgement is that we are one harasser less.

The conversation will naturally steer towards the good if it outweighs the bad. Perhaps I'm being too insensitive; Those are my thoughts for the moment, anyway.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#32

Post by mellosouls »

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #27
mellosouls wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have misread my comment.

I don’t believe I have. What do claims of plagiarism have to do with claims of sexual harassment? Your post seems to defame the alleged victim.

That wasn't the intent; but as you and at least one other have read it that way I've removed it.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#33

Post by fzeroracer »

jeffdavis wrote: post #21
0_gravitas wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but I've never liked the notion of "too soon" as a reason for not doing/saying things, it feels very arbitrary. And I don't know much about the person of subject but I will speak ill of anyone living or dead if they are someone worth speaking ill of.

There are two separate issues: speaking ill of the dead at all; and speaking disrespectfully too soon after a death. Speaking ill of the dead at all is generally not good because the person is no longer able to defend their reputation, and no remedy can be made. The dead is no longer in a position of power to be removed, nor can they improve themselves out of remorse. So of something ill is to be said, saying it afte…

What about those that were harmed by the individual in question? Does it make sense to shame them into silence when they deal with grief and pain of their own?

We should remember people as they were in totality. That means recognizing that people are human, and humans can be remarkably awful to some while putting on a good face to others.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#34

Post by bigpumpkin »

Here's him reading a short section from Hart Crane's The Bridge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRY5SelxqPU

" O Thou steeled Cognizance whose leap commits

The agile precincts of the lark’s return;

Within whose lariat sweep encinctured sing

In single chrysalis the many twain,—

Of stars Thou art the stitch and stallion glow

And like an organ, Thou, with sound of doom—

Sight, sound and flesh Thou leadest from time’s realm

As love strikes clear direction for the helm. "

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#35

Post by webkike »

prvc wrote: post #9

We live in an era where great art has so little power that it requires defending, and that doing so is considered to be controversial. Our time is a spiritual dark age.

   Demetrius: "Villain, what hast thou done?"
   Aaron: “That which thou canst not undo."
   Chiron: "Thou hast undone our mother."
   Aaron: "Villain, I have done thy mother."
- Titus Andronicus, Act 4, Scene 2

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#36

Post by tzs »

dlivingston wrote: post #6
jchallis wrote: post #2

I used to tutor math and physics near Bloom's office in Timothy Dwight. My main association with the man is that he would come on strong to every female English graduate student he could reach. When #MeToo first came to national consciousness about men in arts and letters who completely abused their position to take advantage of women, I thought of Harold. How could these giants of arts and letters abuse so many? Bec…

Regarding Bloom's accuser, > In 2004, Wolf wrote an article for New York magazine accusing literary scholar Harold Bloom of a "sexual encroachment" more than two decades earlier by touching her thigh. She said that what she alleged Bloom did was not harassment, either legally or emotionally, and she did not think herself a "victim", but that she had harbored this secret for 21 years. [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org…

For those who have never heard of "sexual encroachment" and are wondering how it differs from "sexual harassment", Wikipedia covers it [1].

Briefly, she did not feel harassed or traumatized or victimized by it, but rather that her education was corrupted. She says: "Sexual encroachment in an educational context or a workplace is, most seriously, a corruption of meritocracy; it is in this sense parallel to bribery. I was not traumatized personally, but my educational experience was corrupted. If we rephrase sexual transgression in school and work as a civil-rights and civil-society issue, everything becomes less emotional, less personal. If we see this as a systemic corruption issue, then when people bring allegations, the focus will be on whether the institution has been damaged in its larger mission".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf#Alleged_sexual_encr...

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#37

Post by djrobstep »

jerf wrote: post #7
jchallis wrote: post #2

I used to tutor math and physics near Bloom's office in Timothy Dwight. My main association with the man is that he would come on strong to every female English graduate student he could reach. When #MeToo first came to national consciousness about men in arts and letters who completely abused their position to take advantage of women, I thought of Harold. How could these giants of arts and letters abuse so many? Bec…

You shouldn't speak ill of the dead like this. It is uncouth and crass for all sorts of reasons. It doesn't mean you need to forget or ignore it, it just means... today is not the day. More days will come.

Actually it's very good to speak ill of the dead when they have done bad things.

When we are all thinking about them and their legacy is an opportune time to discuss the underlying issues. How else can we accurately remember the dead, and learn from their actions?

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#38

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

jchallis wrote: post #2

I used to tutor math and physics near Bloom's office in Timothy Dwight. My main association with the man is that he would come on strong to every female English graduate student he could reach. When #MeToo first came to national consciousness about men in arts and letters who completely abused their position to take advantage of women, I thought of Harold. How could these giants of arts and letters abuse so many? Bec…

>>How could these giants of arts and letters abuse so many?

We tend to give people that are accomplished in a field an aura of saintliness that they don't deserve. The reality is that once people attain a bit of power many find it hard not to abuse it. And also, people around them tend to ignore the abuses. The only way to fix it is to call the abusers out on their behavior but it's hard for most people to do it because of all the trouble it brings even if it's 100% true. It's easier to give it a pass and hope someone else will do something about it.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#39

Post by walshemj »

blacksqr wrote: post #29
jeffdavis wrote: post #13

The article confuses me. Bloom thought both that Shakespeare invented humanity, but also that literature was primarily about the aesthetic pleasure for the reader? I am not an expert in literature or criticism, but it seems like there's something missing from the article to explain that gap. (I'm sorry to hear of his passing, of course, and I don't mean this as disrespectful in any way.)

Bloom was of the opinion that Shakespeare invented the modern (as distinct from ancient or medieval) conception of conscious self-awareness and introspection as a new idea of what it means to be human and experience life.

That's interesting I will have to read more, when I did classical studies in the 6th form. Our teacher ( head of the sixth form) commented that some of the later Greek plays could be read in that sort of way, The Bacchae for example.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#40

Post by mannykannot »

coldtea wrote: post #15
teflodollar wrote: post #10

It's too bad to read these reports about his lecherousness, because he was without question a giant in the US world of letters.

Well, hitting on women (for men), hitting on men (for women), drinking, taking drugs, being tightwad, being lavish, being easily angered, and tons of other things, never stopped anybody from being a giant of letters or the arts, a great politician, a good scientist, a great athlete, a great actor, a great humanitarian, a great businessperson or any other thing... In fact it's probably more common in the great men and…

I see that you are employing the rhetorical device of diluting rather serious allegations by putting them in a list that also contains things of no importance, but nevertheless, I am in favor of judging a person's contributions independently from their personal attributes. I will not, however, accept that the contributions either justify or excuse harmful behavior.
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