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Bloom, Harold : Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?

Riverhead Books, New York City, NY, 2004

ISBN 1573222844

First Edition / First Printing. As New in As New Dust Jacket. 284 pages. Retrospective collection of essays on subject. One of Harold Bloom's finest achievements. The sequel to and companion volume of "The Western Canon" (1994). The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Harold Bloom's "Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?". Written while Bloom was recovering from a life-threatening illness. It is dedicated to the great American philosopher Richard Rorty, who was also taken ill and died in 2007. The title is, famously, from "The Book of Job". It is, appropriately enough, interrogative rather than declarative, and not the same thing as the Book of Wisdom that many modern-day, "inspirational" demagogue-writers deem their life manifestos to be. Bloom's is a tentative quest, not a final or definitive discovery. "Bloom returns once more to sift through the Western canon, this time to discern and describe those writers whose brand of wisdom he holds in highest esteem. Beginning with Job and Ecclesiastes and ranging from Plato, Homer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Francis Bacon, Dr. Johnson, and Goethe to Emerson, Nietzsche, Freud, and Proust, Bloom writes gracefully about each as he evaluates by comparison and teases out their subtle relationships" (Publishers Weekly). Harold Bloom's idiosyncratic version of the dialectic is "literary" rather than "existential". The dramatic struggle between "authority" and "personality" is the overarching theme of his oversize body of work. "Personality" is triumphant because it is more expressive, more subtle, and more multitudinous whereas "authority" inevitably becomes predictable, rigid, and ossified. "Personality" prevails, and eventually becomes even-more-powerful and awe-inspiring "authority": If there is a more authoritative figure, intimidatingly so, than Harold Bloom in contemporary American literature, we do not know him (or her). So where shall wisdom be found? The choice is between "poetry" (literature) and "philosophy" (commentary). Do we need to choose between Homer and Plato (or Cormac McCarthy and Richard Rorty) ? No, we do not. We need and will find wisdom from both, "as long as we recognize that poetry is superior" (Harold Bloom). An absolute "must-have" title for Harold Bloom collectors. This title is a classic. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce copy thus. The greatest literary critic of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER HAROLD BLOOM TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1573222844.

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