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
We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are. Yet the strongest, most authentic motive for deep reading…is the search for a difficult pleasure.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Deep reading enriches our understanding of ourselves and others while offering the joy of discovering complex ideas.
Harold Bloom's quote emphasizes the multifaceted motivations behind deep reading. While we may engage in profound reading to connect with others, gain self-awareness, or acquire knowledge about the world, the most compelling reason might be the pursuit of a challenging and fulfilling pleasure that comes from engaging with complex texts. This process of deep engagement not only enhances our understanding but also provides a unique intellectual satisfaction that transcends mere information gathering.
Themes
ReadingKnowledgeSelf-DiscoveryPleasureUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
During a book club meeting, one could share this quote to discuss the deeper connections we make through literature.
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
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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