Harold Bloom Books in Order

Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and theorist whose work reshaped discussions of poetic influence and literary value. He was also a prominent defender of Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, and the Western literary canon.

Sources: fas.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)macfound.org (opens in a new tab)

Bloom was born in the East Bronx on July 11, 1930, to Eastern European immigrant parents; Yiddish was his first language. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1951 and a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1955.

Sources: news.cornell.edu (opens in a new tab)macfound.org (opens in a new tab)

Bloom joined Yale’s English faculty in 1955 and became Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale’s highest academic rank. He also served concurrently as Berg Professor of English at New York University from 1988 to 2004.

Sources: macfound.org (opens in a new tab)news.cornell.edu (opens in a new tab)

As a young reader, Bloom was captivated by William Blake and Hart Crane, and at Cornell he was strongly influenced and mentored by critic M. H. Abrams. His criticism also drew on British and American Romanticism, psychoanalytic theory, religious history, and Jewish studies.

Sources: fas.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)macfound.org (opens in a new tab)

Bloom was a MacArthur Prize Fellow and received 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. He was also a finalist for the National Book Awards in 1971 and 1998.

Sources: nationalbook.org (opens in a new tab)news.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)macfound.org (opens in a new tab)