The Western Canon (1994) is a collection of essays by American literary critic Harold Bloom. The text is Bloom’s defense for the “Western Canon,” a collection of works and authors Bloom feels best represent “Western” culture in literature based on their “strangeness,” or the aesthetic value of the texts. The text consists of essays focusing on 26 authors whom Bloom feels best represent his canon, though he also provides appendices detailing a greater number of works and authors. The essays explore The Canon as a Representation of Artistic Merit, The Contrast of Aesthetic and Political Value in Literature, and The Value of Reading and the Durability of Art.

As a contribution to the “canon wars” of the 1980s and 1990s, The Western Canon was received favorably by conservative groups, which argued in favor of the traditional canon, while it was received negatively by those in the Postmodernist, multiculturalist groups, which Bloom calls “The School of Resentment.”

Bloom taught in Yale’s English Department from 1955 until his death in 2019, publishing over 40 works of literary criticism during his career. Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence (1973), in which he outlines how contemporary poets are influenced by and compete with prior poets, plays a significant role in The Western Canon, forming part of his reasoning as to what makes a work “canonical.”

This guide uses the Kindle version of the Harcourt Brace & Company edition of the text, published in 1994.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of racism, religious discrimination, gender discrimination, and mental illness.

Language Note: Bloom uses the term “madness” in the outdated, literary sense of the term when referring to characters whose mental health is debated in a text. He also refers to gay writers as “homosexual.” This guide retains the terms “madness” and “homosexual” in quotations to accurately present Bloom’s arguments.

Summary

Bloom organizes his work following his interpretation of Giambattista Vico’s Scienza Nuova (1725), or New Science. In New Science, Vico determines three ages through which society cycles: the Age of Gods, the Age of Heroes, and the Age of Men, which Bloom calls the Theocratic, Aristocratic, and Democratic ages respectively. After the Age of Men, there is a period of chaos which restarts the cycle, which Bloom identifies as a fourth age called the Chaotic Age, which he takes as a precursor to a New Theocratic Age. He frames the canon in terms of these ages, foregoing the Theocratic Age by starting with the Aristocratic Age. He selects a handful of authors and works to represent each era in different parts of the work.

Bloom’s “Preface and Prelude” and “An Elegy for the Canon” open the work by outlining Bloom’s opposition to what he calls “the School of Resentment,” which Bloom claims seeks to destroy aesthetic value. He also explains the importance of reading challenging works.

In the Aristocratic Age, Bloom discusses Shakespeare first, despite other authors in this part living and writing before Shakespeare, because he identifies Shakespeare as the true center of the “Western Canon.” His primary reasons for favoring Shakespeare are: that Shakespeare created a wealth of characters; his plays have a supposedly universal appeal; Bloom considers his writing aesthetically masterful; and Bloom tracks Shakespeare’s influence through most of the remainder of the canon. Bloom highlights the process of “self-overhearing” (46) in Shakespeare, which grounds his recurring discussions of character, psychology, and universalism throughout the essays.

In addition to Shakespeare, Bloom includes Dante, Cervantes, Chaucer, Montaigne, Moliere, Milton, Samuel Johnson, and Goethe in the Aristocratic Age. While the authors in each age are not specifically connected through any guiding principles, Bloom discusses how each author influenced the authors of their own and later ages. The primary values Bloom ascribes to canonical authors and works are “strangeness” and originality, praising certain authors for specific contributions. Dante’s powerful image of Beatrice, Cervantes’s “mad” protagonist Don Quixote, and Moliere’s Alceste are all highlighted as influential and unique characters. Similarly, Bloom praises Goethe, Dante, and Milton as “mythmakers” who redefine the world through their writing. In part, Bloom acknowledges that the texts of the Aristocratic Age are more challenging and likely intended for upper-class readers of their times, though he notes that Shakespeare is the “people’s poet,” again emphasizing Shakespeare’s supposed universality.

The Democratic Age consists of William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, and Henrik Ibsen. Notably, Bloom discusses the separation of poetry and prose, highlighting the advent of the novel in Austen, Dickens, Eliot, and Tolstoy. Bloom praises Austen, Dickinson, and Eliot for their mastery of aesthetics, but he rejects any suggestion that gender plays a role in writing. He references Wordsworth’s lasting influence. Bloom identifies Whitman as one of the most important poets leading into the Chaotic Age and also considers Whitman a uniquely American writer, calling him a “prophet” of the “American religion.” In this section, Bloom asserts that some authors, such as Ibsen and Tolstoy, had anxieties related to Shakespeare, specifically in that each author claimed a distaste or skepticism about Shakespeare. In response, Bloom identifies what he regards as Shakespeare’s influence in their works.

The Chaotic Age, which Bloom, writing in 1994, believed to be ongoing, includes Sigmund Freud, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, Fernando Pessoa, and Samuel Beckett. Beginning with Freud, Bloom highlights Shakespeare’s influence into the modern day, claiming that Freud only catalogued psychology he sees in Shakespeare’s plays. The character of Hamlet becomes increasingly important, culminating in Bloom’s comparison of Beckett’s Hamm to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, including a discussion of how Joyce’s writing is consistently tied to Shakespeare’s works. Though Bloom credits Borges as the originator of contemporary Latin American writing, he considers all three authors to be influenced primarily by Whitman. Proust, Woolf, and Kafka stand out as authors whom Bloom discusses in light of their identities, including discussions of Proust’s sexuality, Woolf’s Feminism, and Kafka’s Jewish heritage.

In the final essay, “Elegiac Conclusion,” Bloom elaborates on his perspectives regarding reading as an important and dying practice. He criticizes “multiculturalists” and Postmodernists for trying to destroy the canon, and he laments that “cultural studies” seems to be replacing traditional literary study. He concludes by indicating the appendices, which he calls suggestions for avid readers who still wish to “confront greatness.”