Possessed by Memory: The Inward Light of Criticism

Bloom, Harold

ISBN 10: 0525520880 / ISBN 13: 9780525520887

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Borzoi Books, Random House, Inc., New York, 2019

About this Item

INDISPENSIBLE: PERSONAL: LASTING: DARINGLY ORIGINAL: LUCID: LUMINOUS: CONTROVERSIAL: INWARD: ELEGIAC: MEDITATIVE: MOVING: YES, FILLED WITH LOVE, SPIRITUAL: NEW Stated First Edition hardcover (Orig. April 2019) First Printing: NEW handsomely-designed mylar-protected color jacket w/ sharp NEW edges & corners & showing orig. $35.00 pub. price at top-right inside-front flyleaf, IMMACULATE text-block exterior w/ smooth-cut top & bottom edges & cut-page-style "deckle" side-edging, NEW library-durable blue woven paper-over-boards cover w/ sharp NEW edges & corners & titles ELEGANTLY gilt-stamped on spine, IMPECCABLE cream-white card-stock end-papers, NEW hybrid sewn-perfect binding w/ tight signatures-sheets & crimson cloth bands at spine-caps, PRISTINE interior printed in Janson w/ ELEGANT clarity on EXCELLENT unblemished archival paper. * 6.36" x 9.50" x 1.74", 0.94 kg, x+508 (528) pp. * ABOUT THE BOOK: In arguably his most personal & lasting book, America's most daringly original & controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than 80 texts by canonical authors-- texts he has known by heart since childhood. Gone are the polemics. Here, instead, in a memoir of sorts--an inward journey from childhood to 90--Bloom argues elegiacally w/ nobody but Bloom, interested only in the influence of the mind upon itself when it absorbs the highest & most enduring imaginative literature. He offers more than 80 meditations on poems & prose that have haunted him since childhood & which he has possessed by memory: from the Psalms & Ecclesiastes to Shakespeare & Dr. Johnson; Spenser & Milton to Wordsworth & Keats; Whitman & Browning to Joyce & Proust; Tolstoy & Yeats to Delmore Schwartz & Amy Clampitt; Blake to Wallace Stevens--& so much more. And though he has written before about some of these authors, these exegeses, written in the winter of his life, are movingly informed by "the freshness of last things." As Bloom writes movingly: "One of my concerns throughout 'Possessed by Memory' is w/ the beloved dead. Most of my good friends in my generation have departed. Their voices are still in my ears. I find that they are woven into what I read. I listen not only for their voices but also for the voice I heard before the world was made. My other concern is religious, in the widest sense. For me poetry & spirituality fuse as a single entity. All my long life I have sought to isolate poetic knowledge. This also involves a knowledge of God & gods. I see imaginative literature as a kind of theurgy in which the divine is summoned, maintained, & augmented." * ABOUT HAROLD BLOOM: HAROLD BLOOM was until his decease a Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University & a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. His more than 40 books include "The Anxiety of Influence", "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human", "The Western Canon", "The American Religion", and "The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime". He was a MacArthur Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, & the recipient of many awards & honorary degrees, including the American Academy of Arts & Letters' Gold Medal for Belles Lettres & Criticism, the Catalonia International Prize, & Mexico's Alfonso Reyes International Prize. He lived in New Haven. * SHIPPING: MNEMOSYNE carefully wraps, labels & custom-packages this splendid book w/ our greatest elegance & care for FREE shipment via USPS MEDIA MAIL within the U.S. w/ shipment via USPS PRIORITY MAIL for a below cost fee & shipment to international destinations via USPS FIRST CLASS AIRMAIL at our posted below-cost rates.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Possessed by Memory: The Inward Light of Criticism
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, Borzoi Books, Random House, Inc., New York
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525520880
• ISBN 13: 9780525520887
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New
• Dust Jacket Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In arguably his most personal and lasting book, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than eighty texts by canonical authors-- texts he has had by heart since childhood.

Gone are the polemics. Here, instead, in a memoir of sorts--an inward journey from childhood to ninety--Bloom argues elegiacally with nobody but Bloom, interested only in the influence of the mind upon itself when it absorbs the highest and most enduring imaginative literature. He offers more than eighty meditations on poems and prose that have haunted him since childhood and which he has possessed by memory: from the Psalms and Ecclesiastes to Shakespeare and Dr. Johnson; Spenser and Milton to Wordsworth and Keats; Whitman and Browning to Joyce and Proust; Tolstoy and Yeats to Delmore Schwartz and Amy Clampitt; Blake to Wallace Stevens--and so much more. And though he has written before about some of these authors, these exegeses, written in the winter of his life, are movingly informed by "the freshness of last things."

As Bloom writes movingly: "One of my concerns throughout Possessed by Memory is with the beloved dead. Most of my good friends in my generation have departed. Their voices are still in my ears. I find that they are woven into what I read. I listen not only for their voices but also for the voice I heard before the world was made. My other concern is religious, in the widest sense. For me poetry and spirituality fuse as a single entity. All my long life I have sought to isolate poetic knowledge. This also involves a knowledge of God and gods. I see imaginative literature as a kind of theurgy in which the divine is summoned, maintained, and augmented."

About the Author

Harold Bloom was a Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. His more than forty books include The Anxiety of Influence, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, The Western Canon, The American Religion, and The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime. He was a MacArthur Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism, the Catalonia International Prize, and Mexico's Alfonso Reyes International Prize.