Harold Bloom's The Western Canon

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

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The Western Canon (Book) by Harold Bloom, 1498 Books

The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages is a 1994 book about Western literature by the American literary critic Harold Bloom, in which the author defends the concept of the Western canon by discussing 26 writers whom he sees as central to the canon.
The Western Canon includes four appendices listing works that Bloom at the time considered canonical, stretching from the earliest scriptures to Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Bloom later disowned the list, saying that it was written at his editor's insistence and distracted from the book's intention.
In adding this list, I did expand certain titles into multiple books, and combined some, since some are single short stories. This was a difficult list to add since there are so many books.

This list was originally published in 1994 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
10140 Nocturnes For The King Of Naples Edmund White 1978 American English
12385 Time Remaining James McCourt 1993 American English
10856 Modern Baptists James Wilcox 1983 American English
9550 Collected Poems A. R. Ammons 1972 American English
10412 Selected Longer Poems A. R. Ammons 1980 American English
10140 Sphere A. R. Ammons 1978 American English
9294 The Double Dream Of Spring John Ashbery 1970 American English
10042 Houseboat Days John Ashbery 1977 American English
10042 Poems Of John Ashbery John Ashbery 1977 American English
11890 Flow Chart John Ashbery 1991 American English
12113 Hotel Lautréamont John Ashbery 1992 American English
12657 And The Stars Were Shining John Ashbery 1994 American English
8324 American Buffalo David Mamet 1975 American English
11393 Speed The Plow David Mamet 1988 American English
9931 Streamers David Rabe 1976 American English
10559 Seven Plays Sam Shepard 1981 American English
3918 Fences August Wilson 1985 American English
9516 Joe Turner's Come And Gone August Wilson 1984 American English
11653 Collected Earlier Poems Anthony Hecht 1990 American English
9648 Living Together Edgar Bowers 1973 American English
10264 Selected Poems Donald Justice 1979 American English
10752 From The First Nine James Merrill 1982 American Unknown
10752 The Changing Light At Sandover James Merrill 1982 American English
7967 Poems Of W. S. Merwin W. S. Merwin 1952 American English
11653 Above The River James Wright 1990 American English
10752 Selected Poems Galway Kinnell 1982 American English
10949 Selected Poems Philip Levine 1984 American English
10264 New And Selected Poems Irving Feldman 1979 American English
11393 The One Day Donald Hall 1988 American English
9836 Poems Of Donald Hall Donald Hall 1975 American English
8739 Poems Of Alvin Feinman Alvin Feinman 1964 American English
9185 Untitled Subjects Richard Howard 1969 American English
9294 Findings Richard Howard 1970 American Unknown
9931 Reflections On Espionage John Hollander 1976 American English
12657 Poems Of John Hollander John Hollander 2013 American English
12385 Tesserae John Hollander 1993 American English
12113 No Nature Gary Snyder 1992 American English
11029 Poems Of Charles Simic Charles Simic 1985 American English
8739 Poems Of Mark Strand Mark Strand 1964 American English
11653 The Continuous Life Mark Strand 1990 American English
12385 Dark Harbor Mark Strand 1993 American English
11653 The World Of The Ten Thousand Things Charles Wright 1990 American English
9931 Dimensions Of History Jay Wright 1976 American English
10412 The Double Invention Of Komo Jay Wright 1980 American Unknown
11278 Poems Of Jay Wright Jay Wright 1987 American English
11393 Elaine's Book Jay Wright 1988 American Unknown
11890 Boleros Jay Wright 1991 American English
11653 Westward Amy Clampitt 1990 American English
10264 The Ether Dome And Other Poems Allen Grossman 1979 American English
9358 Poems Of Howard Moss Howard Moss 1971 American English
11393 River Writing James Applewhite 1988 American English
11653 The Rest Of The Way J. D. McClatchy 1990 American English
10140 A Call In The Midst Of The Crowd Alfred Corn 1978 American Unknown
10559 The Revisionist Douglas Crase 1981 American English
12385 Selected Poems Rita Dove 1993 American English
12385 Small Congregations Thylias Moss 1993 American English
12657 Earthly Measures Edward Hirsch 1994 American English
7651 Angels In America Tony Kushner 1991 American English