There's an excellent interview with Harold Bloom by Jennie Rothenberg in The Atlantic Online. At the end, he says something new, but very resonant, to me:
[Q:] You like to tell your students, "There is no method except yourself." What do you mean by that?
I believe that very passionately . . . What theory did the great critics have? Critics like Dr. Samuel Johnson or William Hazlitt? Those who adopt a theory are simply imitating someone else. I believe firmly that, in the end, all useful criticism is based upon experience. An experience of teaching, an experience of reading, one's experience of writing -- and most of all, one's experience of living. Just as wisdom, in the end, is purely personal. There can be no method except the Self.
To which I would only add two lines, the first from Mr. Bloom and the second from a shared hero, Oscar Wilde:
If you seek your Self outside yourself, then you will encounter disaster.
The highest criticism is the record of one's own Soul.
That last is what we aim for here. -- Jerome du Bois
(via Arts & Letters Daily)
Posted by Jerome at July 17, 2003 12:35 AM