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Drama and Bloom's Canon

Drama and Bloom's Canon DRAMA AND BLOOM’S CANON GINA MASUCCI MACKENZIE There is Shakespeare and then all the others. That seems to be Harold Bloom’s barely unspoken commentary on drama since the Renaissance. Rarely does he comment on it, other than to extol Shakespeare’s greatness, and then his commentary is clipped and a bit narrow sighted. This seems at odds with one of the most important literary critics of the contemporary errors and one of the greatest explicators of Shakespeare, in any time. What is it about most drama that limits Bloom’s interaction with it? In particular, what about American drama diminishes Bloom’s interest and respect? In Dramatists and Drama, a book still most notably devoted to the ancient Western and Renaissance dramatists, Bloom does a respectable job of covering many of the great male playwrights of American history: Miller, Simon, Albee, Stoppard, Shepard, Williams, Wilson, Mamet and Kushner. In his last great survey of American writers, The American Canon: Literary Genius from Emerson to Pynchon, he and editor David Mikics chose only to include commentary about O’Neill, Williams and Albee. Baldwin too is mentioned, but for his novels only, not his work for stage. It seems that Bloom’s work on American drama http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png symploke University of Nebraska Press

Drama and Bloom's Canon

MacKenzie, Gina Masucci
symploke , Volume 28 (1) – Nov 24, 2020
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Publisher
University of Nebraska Press
Copyright
Copyright © symploke
ISSN
1534-0627

Abstract

DRAMA AND BLOOM’S CANON GINA MASUCCI MACKENZIE There is Shakespeare and then all the others. That seems to be Harold Bloom’s barely unspoken commentary on drama since the Renaissance. Rarely does he comment on it, other than to extol Shakespeare’s greatness, and then his commentary is clipped and a bit narrow sighted. This seems at odds with one of the most important literary critics of the contemporary errors and one of the greatest explicators of Shakespeare, in any time. What is it about most drama that limits Bloom’s interaction with it? In particular, what about American drama diminishes Bloom’s interest and respect? In Dramatists and Drama, a book still most notably devoted to the ancient Western and Renaissance dramatists, Bloom does a respectable job of covering many of the great male playwrights of American history: Miller, Simon, Albee, Stoppard, Shepard, Williams, Wilson, Mamet and Kushner. In his last great survey of American writers, The American Canon: Literary Genius from Emerson to Pynchon, he and editor David Mikics chose only to include commentary about O’Neill, Williams and Albee. Baldwin too is mentioned, but for his novels only, not his work for stage. It seems that Bloom’s work on American drama

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symploke – University of Nebraska Press

Published: Nov 24, 2020

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