Harold Bloom's Canon

Bloom’s Canon I have spent the past two months learning how to use contemporary adolescent literature in a high school classroom. That makes me a danger to people like James D. Black, a teacher at Louisa County High School in Mineral, Virginia. In his essay, “The Monuments of a Culture”, he writes “In a very real sense, our consciences are not our own, for as teachers we have an inescapable moral duty to speak …

…worst in human nature for the most part. “The true use” of canonical literature, says Bloom, “is to augment ones own growing inner self.” To do this successfully we take only the best, and according to Bloom it is not only possible but also imperative that we do this. “Nothing is so essential to the Western Canon as its principal of selectivity (Pg 22).” There is no other way to defend the foundation of our souls.