Student Response: "The Elegiac Conclusion"

Jackie Alessio

In the "Elegiac Conclusion," Harold Bloom expresses concern over literary study and its future. It is his belief that, while readers will not disappear and English studies will still exist, the structure of how literature is studied will undergo changes for the worst.

Bloom notes that the number of readers had significantly decreased. He points the finger at distractions such as television, popular music, MTV, and movies. He also criticizes modern forms of English study, insisting that too much "weak" literature is incorporated into the study of writing. Bloom also contends that we lower our standards too often while studying literature, citing the example of classes in which students make cardboard weapons to accompany the reading of Julius Caesar rather than actually discussing the piece itself. He finally observes that students of English today do not emerge from their education as masters of English; rather they are vaguely familiar with cultural studies.

Another focus in Bloom’s essay is the literary canon itself. In his eyes, there area set number of seats that make up the finest literary works. In Bloom’s opinion, no recent work has been worthy of a place here. Bloom further challenges that there is specifically no American classicism as writers have stopped trying to emulate the skills and quality of fine writers of the past such as Shakespeare and Chaucer. American literature, according to Bloom takes on a "lonely, idiosyncratic, isolated stance."

While Bloom does make a valid point in saying that there are too many distractions that take away from the practice of reading, he is completely wrong to so harshly criticize the way in which English is studied and to discard American literature to such an extreme.

It is my belief, as Rushdie stated in "Outside the Whale" that politics are all around us. While I don’t believe that "reading without a constructive social purpose" is "unethical," I do believe that to tie politics in with literature is almost natural as we cannot avoid the world around us. Bloom is also too critical to imply that English students wind up being "jacks of all trades" in areas of political science, anthropology, etc. but not masters of literature. The more modern study of English, in my opinion, produces readers who are also observant to the goings on around them.

In my eyes, literature is a way to communicate, to make a reader feel or think a certain way. If this means that our culture has embraced movies and comics and music, then by all means we should study it as all three involve the art of writing and sometimes with the intent of swaying the readers feelings or ideas. This is not to say that Shakespeare should collect dust on a shelf. Such works are also important, but as our culture expands, so must what we study.