Bloom asserts the necessity of a canon, since there is not enough time to read everything. He claims that, in literary criticism, a shift is happening away from aesthetics and toward cultural studies and the politicization of the canon. Bloom links human fears of mortality to the desire writers have to join the canon, reflecting on the idea of fame as a form of immortality. He suspects that the competition implied by the canon irritates the School of Resentment.

Over time, different genres are more likely to be canonized, such as American prose romance in the early 20th century or journalistic novels in the late 20th century, and Bloom notes that historical fiction is on the decline. Contradicting Antonio Gramsci, Bloom asserts that aesthetics are unique to the “individual self” and separate from ideology, though he criticizes both those who attack and defend the canon of being guided by ideological motives. He admits that the freedom to meditate on aesthetics is a kind of “theft” from the community, but denies that aesthetics are created by class struggle. Shakespeare is Bloom’s primary example of the power of originality over resentment, insisting that there is a qualitative difference in literature that cements Shakespeare as the center of the Western canon.

Reflecting on a rereading of Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton, Bloom recalls William Empson’s description of the “barbarism” of Milton’s writing. He credits Empson for being a Marxist who did not reduce Milton through Marxist criticism. Comparing Milton to Dante and Shakespeare, Bloom credits Milton for entering the canon, concluding that the Western canon can only accept mastery and cannot become a “program for social salvation” (27). Bloom criticizes Feminist critics for desiring a “quilt” of works and Marxist critics for framing all criticism in terms of class struggle.

Comparing literary criticism to sports, he imagines sports teams grounded in ideological alliances mimicked by their fans. He admits that canonical authors are usually allied with the ruling class, citing William Blake and Walt Whitman as authors who failed because they rejected wealth. Bloom insists that the essential question of literary criticism is comparative, determining which works are better, worse, or equal to prior texts, which he says gives the canon power and authority. He believes that Shakespeare would be the center of a global, multicultural canon by virtue of Shakespeare’s ability to encapsulate human experience. Bloom opposes critics whom he claims want to remove all white men from the canon, concluding that aesthetic standards cannot be driven by “ethnocentric and gender considerations” (40).

Bloom centers Shakespeare in the Western Canon and in the Aristocratic Age, citing Shakespeare and Dante’s “cognitive acuity, linguistic energy, and power of invention” (43). Bloom links Sir John Falstaff, of Henry IV, Part 1 (1597), to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Alys, the Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales (1400), noting how both characters reject morality, embrace play, and change through “self-overhearing.” Despite critics’ moral complaints about Falstaff, Bloom thinks that he is representative of a combined strangeness and familiarity.

Bloom considers Shakespeare separate from ideology, though acknowledging the antisemitism of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (1596), calling Shakespeare “the peoples’ poet” (49), who cannot have been an “accident” of “social energies.” Shakespeare, like the title character of Hamlet (1609), is unique and free from dogma. Citing Milton’s references to an individual relationship with Shakespeare, Bloom asserts that the canon is always intercanonical as an ongoing competition between authors and works. There is little known about Shakespeare’s personal life, which Bloom links to his “neutrality” or “disinterestedness.” According to Bloom, both Tolstoy and Freud, as well as anyone who criticizes Shakespeare, are resentful because they could not match Shakespeare’s greatness.

Excluding the French, Bloom claims that Shakespeare can hold any audience of any culture or class. Bloom argues that Shakespeare presents an authentic view of kenoma, a Gnostic term for the ephemeral, illusory nature of existence through the senses, citing King Lear (1606) as the best example of this phenomenon. Bloom claims that the School of Resentment tries to deny Shakespeare and credit King Lear to “social energies.” He claims his literary criticism aims to fight “cultural politics.”

Bloom wonders if television has reduced people’s ability to read closely. Bloom focuses on two characters from King Lear: Lear and Edmund. Bloom compares Lear to God in the Bible, noting his patriarchal role as a frustration to Feminist critics, though he denies any “patriarchal politics” in King Lear. Lear is overwhelmed by feeling, which Bloom says is contrasted by Edmund, who does not feel at all. Bloom cites Hegel’s assertion that Shakespeare’s villains become “free artists of themselves” (66), adding that Edmund, in the moments before his death, summarizes the deaths of Goneril and Regan to hear himself speak, thus leading him to change himself.

Referring also to Hamlet, Bloom centers Shakespeare in the canon because of his characters’ “introspective consciousness” that allows them to become more real. Noting Moliere’s similarity to Shakespeare, Bloom acknowledges how France has a relatively “un-Shakespearean” literary culture, but he otherwise asserts Shakespeare’s influence in Germany and America. Shakespeare’s universality, according to Bloom, solidifies that “Shakespeare is the Western Canon” (70).

Bloom notes his surprise that the School of Resentment has not targeted Dante, adding that Dante is “politically incorrect.” Bloom credits Dante’s genius for his conception of Beatrice and Ulysses in The Divine Comedy (1308), arguing that Dante is often misread as a theological allegory. Instead, Bloom argues that Beatrice is a purely original creation, noting the heresy of Dante’s inclusion of Beatrice within a divine hierarchy.

Like Shakespeare, Bloom sees many “Dantes” in writers who came after him. Bloom states that Dante’s Divine Comedy is about his conversion to Beatrice, not about his conversion to Christianity or to Augustine as many critics argue. The use of Saint Lucia as an intermediary in the Comedy highlights Dante’s focus on Beatrice as the “ideal object” of his desire. Comparing Beatrice to Dulcinea del Tobosa of Don Quixote (1605), Bloom insists Beatrice cannot be understood through Christian allegory.

Since Beatrice is an individual, Bloom turns to Dante’s representation of Ulysses, which differs from those of Lucretius and Virgil. Bloom sees Ulysses, in the eighth circle of Hell, as a representation of Dante’s own quest for knowledge, in which Ulysses travels the sea for the sake of exploration. Bloom calls The Divine Comedy a flight into “uncharted waters” and exalts Dante as a prophetic poet.

Saying the Comedy is more Gnostic than Christian, Bloom compares Matilda and Beatrice in the Comedy to Leah and Rachel in the Bible, rejecting interpretations of either as action or contemplation. Bloom insists that Rachel, who died in childbirth, and Beatrice are representations of lost love, a universal human experience. Bloom believes that The Divine Comedy is a personal poem with such power that readers assume they are encountering the divine, when Dante is elevating his own love to divinity.

Noting George Santayana’s claim that Dante’s love is “unhealthy” and Leo Spitzer’s claim that Dante’s love represents a love for Christ, Bloom calls Beatrice “the heart of [Dante’s] power and his strangeness” (92). As a muse, Bloom compares Beatrice to Lucretius and Virgil’s conceptions of Venus, noting how Dante praises himself by praising Beatrice in poetry.

Petrarch supplanted Dante in the canon of the Renaissance and Enlightenment until the 19th century. Bloom celebrates Dante as a resource to rediscover “literary individuality” and “poetic autonomy.”

Bloom lists Chaucer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Cervantes as reminders of “aesthetic consideration” against the “onslaught” of “cultural justice” (99). Citing Donald R. Howard, Bloom details the turbulent society in which Chaucer lived, providing details on his life as a courtier and leading to his exposure to Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353) in Italy.

Bloom values how Chaucer and Boccaccio both understood the value in telling stories about storytelling, though he sees The Canterbury Tales as an improvement on the Decameron. Bloom highlights Chaucer as an ironist, specifically how Chaucer the Pilgrim, within The Canterbury Tales, observes everything without judgment. Bloom sees the Yahwist (Biblical author) as Chaucer’s parent and Jane Austen as his child, linking the authors’ common desire to compel readers to read beyond the literal text.

Bloom highlights Chaucer’s ability to create deep, innovative characters, among whom the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner are most important. According to Bloom, the Wife of Bath, though criticized by “moralistic” scholars, is the precursor of Shakespeare’s Falstaff, possessing wit and vitality that subverts social expectations. Bloom details the Wife of Bath’s five marriages and insatiable lust, concluding that her rejection of the church’s morality centers on a desire for feminine control in all matters but sex. Bloom reads the conclusion of “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” as a submission only in sexuality. The Wife of Bath’s lamentation of her age and diminishing vitality create an irony in that a character defined by life must eventually die.

Bloom sees Chaucer’s Pardoner as a precursor to Shakespeare’s Iago and Edmund, as well as Dostoevsky’s Svidrigailov and Stavrogin, as a representation of “European nihilism.” Comparing the Summoner, who blackmails people under the guise of religious authority, and the Pardoner, who sells fake relics to religious people, Bloom calls the Pardoner a “problematic abyss.” Citing G.K. Chesterton, Bloom attributes the Pardoner’s realism to Chaucer’s perspectivism, or his ability to see multiple sides of an issue. The Pardoner’s willingness to condemn his own soul in deceiving others creates a self-destructive hypocrisy, which is then highlighted by the Pardoner’s conclusion to his tale, in which he tries to sell relics to the Host. Like Iago, the Pardoner remains silent after the Host threatens to hurt him, which Bloom emphasizes as a mark of the depth of character that justifies Chaucer’s position in the canon.