----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
This I do not understand. This part of Bloom's argument seems and useful to me. Remember Dante joining the "Greats" of the past in the Limbo of virtuous pagans? Of course he was in dialogue with the past. And Milton at times seems to want his turns to be compared with, seen as a didalogue with, the wonderful turns in the Metamorphoses. Bloom, if I remember correctly, ignores Pope, but Wordsworth's echoes of Pope in the Prelude are always fun. I was skeptical of the _anxiety_ emphasis but the conversation with past poets is a wonderful perception
And I don't remember if this was in Bloom or not, but an author's conversation with the past seems to me the invitation he/she extends to the future, asking for similar response from future writers. It is the writer's plea for immortality. --------------
Yes, but every bit as important that Dante was guided by Virgil was the fact that he was writing a national epic in Italian.
The conversation with the past is part of the fabric of poetry. Catullus pays homage to Sappho; Wyatt acknowledges Petrarch; Donne takes off where Ovid ends, etc. I don't know how wonderful the perception is; for me, it's art as usual. It was the "anxiety" that was Bloom's contribution.
Joanna