Reviewing bad books, W. H. Auden once remarked, is bad for the character. Like all gifted moralists, Auden idealized despite himself, and he should have survived into the present age, wherein the new commissars tell us that reading good books is bad for the character, which I think is probably true. 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.
From Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon.
Biblioklept 
The Death of Irony.
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I didn’t realize until today that this was a eulogy. I attempted to comment on Bloom’s comments, not the author himself. I think in time he will, obviously, be reevaluated. America’s Critic. RIP, Bloom.
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