what we are doing, thinking, saying 32
Bloom only shakes his head, insisting that such a theorist is "massively irrelevant" to literature. Bloom's omnipresent "Scene of Instruction," while it may de-idealize authorial relations, reinstates rather than deconstructs "formal structures with universal value." Although he refuses to be associated with traditional literary humanism as well as deconstruction, since they differ only in regard to "degrees of irony, of the human gap between expectation and fulfillment," 33 Bloom may still come to be regarded as an exaggeratedly defensive spokesman for humanistic values, who sees in literature not the "antimimesis'' of Derridean free play, but the "supermimesis" of eternal psychic struggle, ineluctably stamped upon every text.
Bloom's theoretical system obviously consists of representations of this struggle, and as one might expect, the tradition of literary humanism troubles him deeply, for he must perceive it as a vexingly idealizing precursor to his own more savage vision. Consider these uneasy observations:
If the imagination's gift comes necessarily from the perversity of the spirit, then the living labyrinth of literature is built upon the ruin of every impulse most generous in us. So apparently it is and must bewe are wrong to have founded a humanism directly upon literature itself, and the phrase "humane letters" is an oxymoron. A humanism might still be
Page 37
founded upon a completer study of literature than we have yet achieved, but never upon literature itself, or any idealized mirroring of its implicit categories. The strong imagination comes to its painful birth through savagery and misrepresentation. The only human virtue we can hope to teach through a more advanced study of literature than we have now is the social virtue of detachment from one's own imagination, recognizing always that such detachment made absolute destroys any individual imagination. 34
It seems then that literature and humanism are ultimately incompatible, and only a constant policing of the writer's violent imagination and not its idealized celebration (as in the work of, say, Northrop Frye) will permit aspiring humanists to continue in their literary education.
Here Bloom both models himself after Freud and swerves away from him. Bloom distinguishes himself from his mentor in that for the former, artistic creativity is a matter of repression rather than sublimation: "To equate emotional maturation with the discovery of acceptable substitutes [such as the writing of poems] may be pragmatic wisdom, particularly in the realm of Eros, but this is not the wisdom of the strong poets." 35 In Bloom's revision of the Freudian narrative, it is in the id and not the superego that the poetic father-figures are to be found. Yet Bloom's dark wisdom regarding the savage desires of the strong imagination also resembles Freud's pessimism in such late works as Civilization and Its Discontents, in which the superego is seen as capable of severely punishing an ego which has already renounced many of its instinctual pleasures. In Bloom's understanding of literature, the detached "study of literature," or criticism, may operate as a superego, standing over the "strong imagination,'' though such critical detachment can also lead to the destruction of the imagination. As Freud notes, "Every renunciation of instinct now becomes a dynamic source of conscience and every fresh renunciation increases the latter's severity and intolerance." 36 Against such circumstances, Bloom remains the apostle for the fierce poetic voice: in his terms, "criticism teaches not a language of criticismbut a language in which poetry already is written." 37
Consider, for example, his use of the Hebrew term davhar ("word"). Bloom compares it with the Greek logos:
The concept of davhar is: speak, act, be. The concept of logos is: speak, reckon, think. Logos orders and makes reasonable the
Page 38
context of speech, yet in its deepest
Bloom only shakes his head, insisting that such a theorist is "massively irrelevant" to literature. Bloom's omnipresent "Scene of Instruction," while it may de-idealize authorial relations, reinstates rather than deconstructs "formal structures with universal value." Although he refuses to be associated with traditional literary humanism as well as deconstruction, since they differ only in regard to "degrees of irony, of the human gap between expectation and fulfillment," 33 Bloom may still come to be regarded as an exaggeratedly defensive spokesman for humanistic values, who sees in literature not the "antimimesis'' of Derridean free play, but the "supermimesis" of eternal psychic struggle, ineluctably stamped upon every text.
Bloom's theoretical system obviously consists of representations of this struggle, and as one might expect, the tradition of literary humanism troubles him deeply, for he must perceive it as a vexingly idealizing precursor to his own more savage vision. Consider these uneasy observations:
If the imagination's gift comes necessarily from the perversity of the spirit, then the living labyrinth of literature is built upon the ruin of every impulse most generous in us. So apparently it is and must bewe are wrong to have founded a humanism directly upon literature itself, and the phrase "humane letters" is an oxymoron. A humanism might still be
Page 37
founded upon a completer study of literature than we have yet achieved, but never upon literature itself, or any idealized mirroring of its implicit categories. The strong imagination comes to its painful birth through savagery and misrepresentation. The only human virtue we can hope to teach through a more advanced study of literature than we have now is the social virtue of detachment from one's own imagination, recognizing always that such detachment made absolute destroys any individual imagination. 34
It seems then that literature and humanism are ultimately incompatible, and only a constant policing of the writer's violent imagination and not its idealized celebration (as in the work of, say, Northrop Frye) will permit aspiring humanists to continue in their literary education.
Here Bloom both models himself after Freud and swerves away from him. Bloom distinguishes himself from his mentor in that for the former, artistic creativity is a matter of repression rather than sublimation: "To equate emotional maturation with the discovery of acceptable substitutes [such as the writing of poems] may be pragmatic wisdom, particularly in the realm of Eros, but this is not the wisdom of the strong poets." 35 In Bloom's revision of the Freudian narrative, it is in the id and not the superego that the poetic father-figures are to be found. Yet Bloom's dark wisdom regarding the savage desires of the strong imagination also resembles Freud's pessimism in such late works as Civilization and Its Discontents, in which the superego is seen as capable of severely punishing an ego which has already renounced many of its instinctual pleasures. In Bloom's understanding of literature, the detached "study of literature," or criticism, may operate as a superego, standing over the "strong imagination,'' though such critical detachment can also lead to the destruction of the imagination. As Freud notes, "Every renunciation of instinct now becomes a dynamic source of conscience and every fresh renunciation increases the latter's severity and intolerance." 36 Against such circumstances, Bloom remains the apostle for the fierce poetic voice: in his terms, "criticism teaches not a language of criticismbut a language in which poetry already is written." 37
Consider, for example, his use of the Hebrew term davhar ("word"). Bloom compares it with the Greek logos:
The concept of davhar is: speak, act, be. The concept of logos is: speak, reckon, think. Logos orders and makes reasonable the
Page 38
context of speech, yet in its deepest
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