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
Everyone wants a prodigy to fail; it makes our mediocrity more bearable.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People often wish for the failure of those who excel so they can feel better about their own average performance.
This quote by Harold Bloom reflects a deep-seated psychological tendency where individuals may hope for the failure of extraordinarily talented people, as it helps them to cope with their own mediocrity. It suggests that when prodigies or high achievers fail, it validates the experiences of those who struggle and makes their less distinguished accomplishments feel more acceptable. This highlights a darker side of human nature, where jealousy and insecurity can lead to a sense of schadenfreude, finding pleasure in the misfortunes of the successful.
Themes
FailureMediocrityJealousyProdigyPsychology
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion about high achievers in a workplace setting, one might reference this quote to highlight insecurities.
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.
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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.
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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.
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
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