Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom was a literary critic and Yale teacher whose work ranged from Romantic poetry to Shakespeare and the idea of a Western canon. The 1987 Chelsea House volume Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot places him in an editorial role: he selected the critical essays and supplied the introduction for the Modern Critical Interpretations series. Its contributors examine Beckett’s play through questions of selfhood, myth, modernity, language, and theatrical form. Bloom’s association with the book therefore reflects his extensive work as an editor of literary criticism as well as his own authorship. Yale remembers him as Sterling Professor of Humanities and the author of more than forty books, including The Anxiety of Influence and The Western Canon.