Bloom's Irony
Bloom makes a point of how the J author is ironic. As I've mentioned before, I'm pretty sure I don't agree with this position. I do, however, believe that Bloom is ironic in a rather unfortunate way.
In The Book of J he says that "Scholars have a way of dividing up strong ancient works and assigning them to several authors . . . destroying . . . individual creativity" (18). Bloom is speaking here about the Book of J and how people try to say it was not simply written by one person (J), but the irony seems to be lost on him. He has already broken up an ancient work (the Pentateuch), assigning it to four different authors simply because one cannot let good books lie.
Somehow I don't think that was the irony he was going for.
In The Book of J he says that "Scholars have a way of dividing up strong ancient works and assigning them to several authors . . . destroying . . . individual creativity" (18). Bloom is speaking here about the Book of J and how people try to say it was not simply written by one person (J), but the irony seems to be lost on him. He has already broken up an ancient work (the Pentateuch), assigning it to four different authors simply because one cannot let good books lie.
Somehow I don't think that was the irony he was going for.
posted by J.M.R. Burgard @ 9:29 AM
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