{"id":73832,"date":"2014-07-11T16:05:34","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T20:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=73832"},"modified":"2014-07-11T16:26:40","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T20:26:40","slug":"solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"Solitary and Authentic Deep Readers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vTuiQ4Jt168?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/interviews\/2225\/the-art-of-criticism-no-1-harold-bloom\">Art of Criticism interview<\/a> from our Spring 1991 issue, Harold Bloom tells of a kind of literary conversion experience:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I was preadolescent, ten or eleven years old. I still remember the extraordinary delight, the extraordinary force that Crane and Blake brought to me\u2014in particular Blake\u2019s rhetoric in the longer poems\u2014though I had no notion what they were about. I picked up a copy of the <em>Collected Poems<\/em> of Hart Crane in the Bronx Library. I still remember when I lit upon the page with the extraordinary trope, \u201cO Thou steeled Cognizance whose leap commits \/ The agile precincts of the lark\u2019s return.\u201d I was just swept away by it, by the Marlovian rhetoric. I still have the flavor of that book in me. Indeed it\u2019s the first book I ever owned. I begged my oldest sister to give it to me, and I still have the old black and gold edition she gave me for my birthday back in 1942. It\u2019s up on the third floor. Why is it you can have that extraordinary experience (preadolescent in my case, as in so many other cases) of falling violently in love with great poetry\u00a0\u2026 where you are moved by its power before you comprehend it? In some, a version of the poetical character is incarnated and in some like myself the answering voice is from the beginning that of the critic.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>A few years later, in 2000, Bloom appeared on C-Span\u2019s <em>Booknotes<\/em> in support of <em>How to Read and Why<\/em>. In the excerpt above, the host, Brian Lamb, gets him on the subject of teaching; and Bloom, who\u2019s been a member of the Yale faculty since 1955, becomes visibly moved as he vacillates on the degree of isolation he feels:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Do I feel isolated in America? Yeah, I guess in a way I do. It does seem to me \u2026 I\u2019m a somewhat outspoken old monster. You know, why not, at my age\u2014what can they do to me? One wants to tell the truth. And I think the truth is pretty dreadful nowadays, culturally speaking and intellectually speaking \u2026 I guess I can feel kind of isolated. Isolated, maybe, in the profession. Isolated in terms of the media \u2026 But not isolated with the reading public \u2026 Clearly there are a vast number of what I would call solitary and authentic deep readers in the United States who have not gone the way of counterculture, and they are of all ages, and all races, and all ethnic groups.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And toward the end of the segment, as he blinks tears out of his eyes:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Here I am about to turn seventy and maybe I am obsolete, but that\u2019s just personal inadequacy \u2026 What I hope to represent, what I try to represent, that cannot be obsolete. If that is obsolete, then we will go down. But I\u2019m being too emotional. I\u2019m sorry.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Bloom is eighty-four today, and still teaching. Happily his work is no closer to obsolescence than it was fourteen years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The entire episode of Booknotes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.c-span.org\/video\/?157968-1\/book-discussion-read\" target=\"_blank\">is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his Art of Criticism interview from our Spring 1991 issue, Harold Bloom tells of a kind of literary conversion experience: I was preadolescent, ten or eleven years old. I still remember the extraordinary delight, the extraordinary force that Crane and Blake brought to me\u2014in particular Blake\u2019s rhetoric in the longer poems\u2014though I had no [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1539],"tags":[9158,14586,14587,14585,3768,5738,1132,12904],"class_list":["post-73832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-multimedia","tag-birthdays","tag-booknotes","tag-brian-lamb","tag-c-span","tag-harold-bloom","tag-hart-crane","tag-interviews","tag-the-art-of-criticism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Happy Birthday, Harold Bloom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The critic on his literary conversion experience.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Solitary and Authentic Deep Readers by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"July 11, 2014 \u2013 In his Art of Criticism interview from our Spring 1991 issue, Harold Bloom tells of a kind of literary conversion experience: I was preadolescent, ten or\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-07-11T20:05:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-07-11T20:26:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dan Piepenbring\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8\"},\"headline\":\"Solitary and Authentic Deep Readers\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-07-11T20:05:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-07-11T20:26:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/\"},\"wordCount\":519,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"birthdays\",\"Booknotes\",\"Brian Lamb\",\"C-Span\",\"Harold Bloom\",\"Hart Crane\",\"interviews\",\"the art of criticism\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Video &amp; Multimedia\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/\",\"name\":\"Happy Birthday, Harold Bloom\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-07-11T20:05:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-07-11T20:26:40+00:00\",\"description\":\"The critic on his literary conversion experience.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Solitary and Authentic Deep Readers\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8\",\"name\":\"Dan Piepenbring\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dan Piepenbring\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/dpiepenbring\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Happy Birthday, Harold Bloom","description":"The critic on his literary conversion experience.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Solitary and Authentic Deep Readers by Dan Piepenbring","og_description":"July 11, 2014 \u2013 In his Art of Criticism interview from our Spring 1991 issue, Harold Bloom tells of a kind of literary conversion experience: I was preadolescent, ten or","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2014-07-11T20:05:34+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-07-11T20:26:40+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Dan Piepenbring","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dan Piepenbring","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/"},"author":{"name":"Dan Piepenbring","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8"},"headline":"Solitary and Authentic Deep Readers","datePublished":"2014-07-11T20:05:34+00:00","dateModified":"2014-07-11T20:26:40+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/"},"wordCount":519,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"keywords":["birthdays","Booknotes","Brian Lamb","C-Span","Harold Bloom","Hart Crane","interviews","the art of criticism"],"articleSection":["Video &amp; Multimedia"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/","name":"Happy Birthday, Harold Bloom","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-07-11T20:05:34+00:00","dateModified":"2014-07-11T20:26:40+00:00","description":"The critic on his literary conversion experience.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/11\/solitary-and-authentic-deep-readers\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Solitary and Authentic Deep Readers"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8","name":"Dan Piepenbring","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6fde7ced443ba5b52db3b06239dca8a2eaeff111fccecd7bf483663c99d2762b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dan Piepenbring"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/dpiepenbring\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73832"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73841,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73832\/revisions\/73841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}