The function of poetry is " help us become free of ourselves makers." Is convinced of the great American critic Harold Bloom, the theoretician of the Canon of Western brash, who with his little book The art of reading poetry (Rizzoli) answered, perhaps forever, perhaps not, one of frequently asked questions when it comes to the poems (but often also art in general): what's the use . In fact, the basic premise is that art, as art, not necessarily "serve" to something more practical in the sense of the word. But the analysis of Bloom, a passionate lover of poetry, aiming higher, as the same title, which is to enhance and make more understandable because it is still important and need to read poetry.
books by Harold Bloom and overflowing with references and links, even when they have a certain measure is not as monumental as in this case. The poetic argument, however, has also the merit of restoring order, at least in part, the fury of the methodological prominent scholar, who peppered his earlier work angry monologues against what he believes are the distortions of gender rather than racial critique of American academic. Here are some positions there is only a faint echo, and the book is affected positively, as if the beauty of the argument had the strength to make clear the approach of Bloom.
entering the substance of the text, the critic now provides an interesting definition of poetry: 'It is essential imagery and condensed so that its form is both expressive and evocative. " Bloom then goes to the analysis the " operation" of the poem here then make its appearance the poetic memory, which allows the "recognition ", that is the key point of thinking applied to literature. With examples taken almost entirely from Anglophone poetry - although Bloom has placed at the center of his fee, second only to Shakespeare, the Florentine Dante - the critic opens the reader to the ground dell'allusività decisive on the battlefield where the greatest extent Bloom or smaller size of a work in verse. The next step is then to reach the empyrean of poets, where reigns the inevitability. Dell'Alighieri never spoken directly in this book, but the logical framework built by Harold Bloom, in some ways reminiscent of the geography theological Comedy . Perhaps this is a demonstration of dell'allusione.
absolutely overflowing in character, Bloom is not exempt from certain judge the poets, and here he is a monster crush sacred as Edgar Allan Poe: "I know Poe recite by heart, because his poems are discounted , mechanical and repetitive . When you know a great poetry by heart, is because the work is inevitable, and realized perfectly feasible ". An example, taken almost at random, from ' Ulysses by Tennyson: "many lost, but much remains for us: not we are the force-more than in the early days moved earth and heaven: / us who has what hath been. " Cradled by these admirable words, here is a word that looms Kantian that few critics have the courage to write about today: the sublime. Born, Bloom concludes in a crescendo of passion that recalls the enthusiasm with which the professor of "Dead Poets Society" recited the verses of Walt Withman, the "strangeness " poetic drift "by contact with a kind of consciousness different from ours "(Owen Barnfield) and paves the way for the conclusion:" The mission of great poetry - Bloom writes - is therefore to help authors become free of ourselves. [...] Art read the poem is a genuine exercise of growth of consciousness, perhaps the most authentic of all the healthy ways. "
