Bloom centers Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in the American and Western canons, citing Song of Myself (1856) and five other poems by Whitman. Bloom praises Whitman’s imagination and notes how Whitman’s comparisons of himself to Jesus are potentially blasphemous but encompass the entirety of the “American religion.”

Bloom compares Whitman to Emerson, adding that Emerson praised Whitman’s poetry. Regarding Whitman’s frequent use of, and allusion to, masturbation, Bloom speculates that critics hesitate to discuss these themes out of embarrassment. Discussing “The Sleeper,” Bloom highlights Whitman’s use of death, night, motherhood, and the ocean in expressing a sense of internal self. Comparing Whitman to Lear, Bloom explains Whitman’s concept of the soul, self, and true self, noting how the poet viewed each part of his identity. Whitman’s soul is unknowable nature, while his self is the persona of the rugged, outcast American individualist, and the “real me” is linked to the supposed femininity of the ocean and night.

Returning to Whitman’s use of autoeroticism in his texts, Bloom identifies Whitman’s sexuality as a critical component of his poetry, comparing Whitman to Milton’s solitary perspective. Drawing on Wallace Stevens’s imagining of Whitman with a flaming beard and staff, Bloom declares that there are no “ideologies” or “social energies” in Stevens or Whitman.

Bloom links Whitman’s ambiguous presentations of selfhood to American culture and religion. He claims that no woman could decenter Whitman in the canon because he was “no more male” (260) than Shakespeare or Henry James. Bloom attributes canonicity to the “quiet persistence” of strong writers, noting The Divine Comedy (1308) and Paradise Lost (1667) as examples.

Recalling Whitman’s notebooks, Bloom analyzes Whitman’s metaphor of a “headland” as a representation of the phallus and masturbation, again noting Whitman’s ambiguity around fearing and desiring autoeroticism. Bloom links this crisis to that of Whitman’s comparison of himself to Jesus, noting Whitman’s concepts of resurrection, commonality, and the divine within the human.

Bloom credits Whitman with changing the landscape of American literature, comparing him to Goethe in German. He notes connections between Whitman and many poets who came after him.

Bloom praises Emily Dickinson’s “cognitive originality,” which he says is superior to any prior Western poet since Dante. Bloom claims that critics underestimate Dickinson’s intellect and asserts that her poetry is difficult to decipher, adding that teaching Dickinson’s poems was a struggle for him.

As with other writers in the canon, Bloom values Dickinson’s “strangeness” and begins by examining her use of “blanks” in Poem 761: “From Blank to Blank.” Bloom provides a reading linking the poem’s use of “threadless” to the story of Theseus, noting the labyrinthine nature of the “quests” in Dickinson’s poems. The “blank” could refer to various other authors’ uses of “blank,” and Bloom settles on “blank” meaning the center of a target.

Bloom argues that Dickinson “unnamed” or rethought things through her own perspective, comparing her to Ursula K. Le Guin’s story, “She Unnamed Them.” Though Bloom traces Dickinson’s influence in future literature, he asserts that later poets cannot match Dickinson’s “intellect.” Bloom distinguishes Dickinson’s writing as secular and praises the process by which she writes her poems, linking her style to the High Romantics.

Discussing Poem 1109, Bloom examines Dickinson’s use of the terms “Dark,” “transport,” and “Aim,” linking back to Poem 419. In both, Bloom sees Dickinson discussing death and the dead, seeing the poems as works of mourning. Transitioning to Poem 1153, Bloom discusses Dickinson’s use of irony, analyzing how the different uses of “this” in the poem indicate different states of being, culminating in a metaphorical death.

Bloom highlights Poems 258 and 627, comparing Dickinson’s “Slant of Light” to her “Tint I cannot take” and discussing how Dickinson wrote about perspective. In each, Bloom sees Dickinson addressing a uniqueness of perspective that represents her desire of expression, rejecting Feminist readings that attempt to gender Dickinson’s writing. Centering on the terms “palpable” and “repressed,” Bloom interprets the poems to indicate an understanding of the limits of comprehension. Connecting Dickinson to Nietzsche’s “will to power” (288), Bloom reiterates that Dickinson’s strengths lie in her intellect, strangeness, and originality, further rejecting any link between her canonicity and her gender.

Bloom considers Charles Dickens as the strongest novelist, noting how the art of the novel has diminished since the 19th century. Bleak House (1853) is Dickens’s central work, and Bloom praises his powers of invention. Esther Summerson is a dynamic character; Bloom ventures that she represents Dickens, claiming that Dickens was not a patriarchal writer. Bloom sees Esther as Dickens’s attempt at writing Shakespearean psychological change, linking her to the heroines representing Protestant will in other authors’ works. Highlighting Esther’s “forward recollection,” Bloom compares her to Franz Kafka and insists she does not fit in Feminist or Marxist readings of the novel.

Bloom calls John Jarndyce the second-most valuable character in Bleak House, criticizing other critics who question his role in the patriarchal themes of the novel. Bloom cites the decision to avoid a marriage between John and Esther as Dickens’s only deviation from the romance genre. Comparing Dickens and Robert Browning, Bloom calls both authors “masters of the grotesque” (296) and praises Dickens’s “strangeness.” Bloom praises Dickens for his international influence.

He then chooses to discuss George Eliot’s Middlemarch  (1871) for her “subtlest analysis of the moral imagination” (298). Bloom links Eliot’s morality to Wordsworth instead of Christianity, citing morals and aesthetics as her main concerns. Bloom quotes both F. W. H. Myers and Henry James in praising Eliot’s cognitive strength, calling Middlemarch both a canonical novel and “wisdom literature.” Bloom sees Dante’s influence in Eliot’s characters, Dorothea and Lydgate, comparing them to Francesca and Paolo in Canto V of The Divine Comedy. Bloom reflects on Lydgate’s failing, comparing him to Diver in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (1934) and notes the sadness of Dorothea’s ultimate marriage to Ladislaw, which recalls Eliot’s own marriage to John Cross.

Bloom argues that Eliot crafted Dorothea within the limitations placed on women and does not believe that a greater Feminist urge would have improved the novel. He quotes from Eliot, noting how she acknowledged the impact of society on the individual, but he emphasizes how she also possessed the individual strength to overcome that influence.

Quoting from Maxim Gorky’s Reminiscences (1919), Bloom reflects on Leo Tolstoy’s unique perspectives on God and morality. Bloom distinguishes between Tolstoy’s life and his writing, which present “two Tolstoys.” Bloom derives Tolstoy’s value in the canon from his expansive imagination and naturalizing strangeness, in which Bloom says readers recognize their own limited view of the world through Tolstoy’s expanded vision. Bloom questions the importance of Tolstoy’s beliefs and notes how Tolstoy hated Shakespeare. Bloom highlights Hadji Murad (1912), Tolstoy’s short novel about the titular Avar commander during the Russian conquest of Chechnya and Dagestan, as Tolstoy’s most important work.

Bloom summarizes Hadji Murad as a history of Hadji Murad, the historical figure, but he hesitates to call it historical fiction. Quoting from Tolstoy’s biographer, Aylmer Maude, Bloom notes Tolstoy’s direct connection to Hadji Murad during his military service, though the novella was written decades later. The character of Hadji Murad, for Bloom, is reminiscent of Greek heroes, such as Achilles and Odysseus, without their flaws. Bloom exalts Hadji Murad as an original character, though he calls Hadji Murad Tolstoy’s more Shakespearean story. Bloom predicts that the School of Resentment, which loves “moralism,” will accept Tolstoy over Shakespeare in the canon.

Noting Tolstoy as a “prophet of nonviolence” (320), Bloom marvels at Hadji Murad’s “fierce narrative,” calling battle in Hadji Murad a “release” or indulgence for Tolstoy and identifying war as a means to ward off thoughts of death. Quoting from John Bayley and Thomas Mann, Bloom calls Tolstoy a “great solipsist,” which he contrasts against Hadji Murad’s sense of other selves. Bloom imagines that Tolstoy, whom he sees as similar to King Lear, wished he was more like Hadji Murad. Hadji Murad’s death allows Tolstoy to escape his solipsism, which Bloom considers an “aesthetic triumph” worthy of the canon.

Bloom recounts a forum at Harvard in which he argued that Hedda, in Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (1890), is reminiscent of Iago and Edmund, which upset a Feminist scholar. Bloom praises Ibsen’s range and places Ibsen in the “Aesthetic Age” between the Democratic and the Chaotic. Bloom quotes Eric Bentley in saying that Ibsen disapproved of his characters, though they are full of life. Peer Gynt is the only character Ibsen failed to bring to despair. Linking Peer Gynt (1869) to Faust, Part Two (1832), Bloom notes Ibsen’s use of Norwegian folklore, claiming that Ibsen’s trolls represent parts of human nature. “Trollishness” is amorality, which Bloom considers crucial to Ibsen’s aesthetics and “strangeness,” cementing his place in the canon.

Bloom highlights Brand (1865) as Ibsen’s first canonical play, crediting Geoffrey Hill’s translation for a resurgence of interest in the modern day. Both Brand and Peer, of Peer Gynt, are trollish, but Bloom distinguishes between Brand’s self-destructive nature and Peer’s status as a “natural man.” Bloom disagrees with W. H. Auden’s claims that Brand is blasphemous, and Peer is an artist, saying that Peer Gynt, like Hamlet (1609) and Don Quixote (1605), presents an aesthetic universalism. Following the plot of Peer Gynt, Bloom draws comparisons to James Joyce, Goethe, and Aristophanes, noting Peer’s ingenuity, comic failings, and ultimate absurdity. Bloom disagrees with Michael Meyer that Peer dies in Act V, saying Peer is a survivor and praising him as a fully realized personality in the play. Act V presents an aged Peer, whose fate is left between the looming threat of the Button-Molder and the Beatrice-like embrace of Solveig, which Bloom reads as an irony indicating meaninglessness.

Bloom places Brand as a prelude to Peer Gynt and Emperor and Galilean (1873) as its Epilogue, emphasizing how Ibsen’s “trollishness” pervades each work and drives what is interesting in Ibsen’s writing. Bloom compares Ibsen to the Great Boyg, the troll of Peer Gynt, arguing against attempts to “moralize” Ibsen and reaffirming Ibsen’s place in the canon.