News at Eleven: [Harold Bloom] describes this transformation,

in his new book, as a literal awakening, on his 37th birthday, from a nightmare that impelled him to spend a day feverishly writing a "dithyramb" that evolved into "The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry." Published in 1973, it remains, with the possible exception of Northrop Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism" (to which Bloom's new book pays sly if debunking homage), the postwar era's most original work of criticism, still spellbinding and bewildering. Bloom's primary insight was that contemporary literary study imputed a false benignity to the act of poetic invention, when in reality it grew out of competitive struggle, pitting young poets against their elders. This was not a new idea.

from The New York Times: Harold Bloom: An Uncommon Reader

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