We all fear loneliness, madness, dying. Shakespeare and Walt Whitman, Leopardi and Hart Crane will not cure those fears. And yet these poets bring us fire and light.
Harold BloomRead
Reading the very best writers—let us say Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Tolstoy—is not going to make us better citizens. Art is perfectly useless, according to the sublime Oscar Wilde, who was right about everything. He also told us that all bad poetry is sincere. Had I the power to do so, I would command that these words be engraved above every gate at every university, so that each student might ponder the splendor of the insight.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Reading great literature may not improve civic duties, but it enriches the human experience.
Harold Bloom reflects on the value of reading classic literature by authors such as Homer and Shakespeare, suggesting that while such readings may not directly contribute to being better citizens, they are invaluable for personal and artistic enrichment. He quotes Oscar Wilde to emphasize that art, which may seem useless in a practical sense, nonetheless holds profound beauty and significance that influences our understanding of life. Bloom advocates for the recognition of this insight, proposing that it should be a guiding principle in education.
Themes
LiteratureArtEducationCitizenshipOscar Wilde
In practice
Example use cases
During a commencement speech to emphasize the importance of the arts in education.
More from Harold Bloom
All quotes →I am naive enough to read incessantly because I cannot, on my own, get to know enough people profoundly enough.
Harold BloomRead
Reading well is one of the greatest pleasures that solitude can afford you.
Harold BloomRead
Socrates, in Plato, formulates ideas of order: the Iliad, like Shakespeare, knows that a violent disorder is a great order.
Harold BloomRead
I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist.
Harold BloomRead
Everyone wants a prodigy to fail; it makes our mediocrity more bearable.
Harold BloomRead
Similar quotes
I believe black characters in fiction are still revolutionary, given our long history of erasure.
Tananarive DueRead
She danced the dance of flames and fire, _x000D_ _x000D_ and the dance of swords and spears; _x000D_ _x000D_ she danced the dance of stars and the dance of space, _x000D_ _x000D_ and then she danced the dance of flowers in the wind.
Khalil GibranRead
Drawing is not only a way to come up with pictures: drawing is a way to educate your eye to understand visual information, organizing it into a more hierarchical way, a more economical way. When you see something, if you draw often and frequently, you examine a room very differently.
Vik MunizRead
The arts have a development which comes not only from the individual but also from a whole acquired force, the civilization which precedes us. One cannot do just anything. A talented artist cannot do whatever he pleases. If he only used his gifts, he would not exist. We are not the masters of what we produce. It is imposed on us.
Henri MatisseRead
Literature is born when something in life goes slightly adrift.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype; 6. compassion.
Anton ChekhovRead