Harold Bloom, antiquated old letch that he is, offers us from Emerson in yesterday’s NY Times on possibility in a time of destruction. He plays for a moment with all the different shapes “the god within us” takes, but it is a quiet reminder that, as Anna Deveare Smith said, “the man has the power, but so do you.” A little different, and yet exactly the same.
As Emerson knew in his glory and sorrow, both of himself and all Americans: “The wealth of the universe is for me. Every thing is explicable and practical for me …. I am defeated all the time; yet to victory I am born.”
From the Chris Lydon interviews with Bloom on Emerson…
More on Deveare Smith tomorrow, because she’s certainly one of the greatest living artists we have, and her work never loses its relevancy, and she is an amalgam of everything amazing about words and poetry and voice.
