Catalonia Pays Homage to Harold Bloom

At a ceremony held in Barcelona last month, Yale professor and literary critic Harold Bloom was awarded the prestigious Catalonia International Prize for his lasting contribution to the humanities.

Described in the award citation as “an original thinker and provocative presence in the international literary scene,” Bloom is arguably the most widely known, and widely read, man of letters in the public arena today, as renowned for his erudition as for his views. The Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale, he is the author of more than two dozen books ranging in subject from poetry and the literary creative process to biblical interpretation and religion.

Throughout much of his career, Bloom’s work was directed more to an academic than a general audience. “The Anxiety of Influence,” his 1973 book analyzing how poets come to terms with their great precursors, became a staple of literature syllabi in colleges and universities, but it was not until the publication in 1994 of “The Western Canon” that Bloom became a major voice in public discourse.

In “The Western Canon,” Bloom advocates the study of works by 26 literary giants in the Western tradition as an antidote to a curriculum that he believes is held hostage to gender, ethnic and political interests. The book was particularly commended by the prize committee for “reaching out to a popular audience in many countries.”

In the widely acclaimed “Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human” (1999), he argues that we owe our very notion of what it means to be human to the Bard. “How to Read and Why,” written in 2000, is both a guide to some of his favorite authors and an exhortation to pursue a pastime he sees as endangered in Western culture. Most recently, he published the anthology “Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages.”

The prize is the most recent in a long list of awards and honors Bloom has received in his career as writer, scholar and teacher. Others include a MacArthur Prize “genius grant,” the Melville Cane Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Gold Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Established in 1989, the annual Catalonia International Prize is given to “individuals whose creative work has contributed decisively to promoting cultural, scientific and human values throughout the world.” Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Václav Havel and Doris Lessing are among the luminaries to have received the award from the Catalonian regional government. Intended to draw international attention to the language and culture of Catalonia as well as to honor individuals, the prize carries a monetary reward of 80,000 euros ($75,000).