Wonderful. I couldn't have said it better. And I am a massive fan of Harold Bloom and have been for thirty years.

He has been demonized for too long in literature departments. Now that he is gone, we can reassess his legacy.

I hope people will do so. Judging a literary work by how much it empowers or disempowers someone is laudable and interesting, but it also misses so much. Aesthetic values must come into play.

Camille Paglia, a disciple of Bloom, has been cancelled for her "conservative" views on literature and identity politics. But her work on aesthetics, especially Sexual Personae, is very valuable. I used it, as well as Bloom's many books, in my English teaching career to help my students make sense of classic works of literature.

They worked. Students found meaning in texts they would otherwise have likely rejected.

Feminist, Marxist, and Postmodern theories did not have the same inspiring effect.