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
10136 Nocturnes For The King Of Naples Edmund White 1978 American English
12384 Time Remaining James McCourt 1993 American English
10853 Modern Baptists James Wilcox 1983 American English
9548 Collected Poems A. R. Ammons 1972 American English
10408 Selected Longer Poems A. R. Ammons 1980 American English
10136 Sphere A. R. Ammons 1978 American English
9292 The Double Dream Of Spring John Ashbery 1970 American English
10037 Houseboat Days John Ashbery 1977 American English
10037 Poems Of John Ashbery John Ashbery 1977 American English
11888 Flow Chart John Ashbery 1991 American English
12112 Hotel Lautréamont John Ashbery 1992 American English
12656 And The Stars Were Shining John Ashbery 1994 American English
8324 American Buffalo David Mamet 1975 American English
11391 Speed The Plow David Mamet 1988 American English
9927 Streamers David Rabe 1976 American English
10556 Seven Plays Sam Shepard 1981 American English
3918 Fences August Wilson 1985 American English
9514 Joe Turner's Come And Gone August Wilson 1984 American English
11651 Collected Earlier Poems Anthony Hecht 1990 American English
9645 Living Together Edgar Bowers 1973 American English
10260 Selected Poems Donald Justice 1979 American English
10749 From The First Nine James Merrill 1982 American Unknown
10749 The Changing Light At Sandover James Merrill 1982 American English
7967 Poems Of W. S. Merwin W. S. Merwin 1952 American English
11651 Above The River James Wright 1990 American English
10749 Selected Poems Galway Kinnell 1982 American English
10946 Selected Poems Philip Levine 1984 American English
10260 New And Selected Poems Irving Feldman 1979 American English
11391 The One Day Donald Hall 1988 American English
9833 Poems Of Donald Hall Donald Hall 1975 American English
8738 Poems Of Alvin Feinman Alvin Feinman 1964 American English
9184 Untitled Subjects Richard Howard 1969 American English
9292 Findings Richard Howard 1970 American Unknown
9927 Reflections On Espionage John Hollander 1976 American English
12656 Poems Of John Hollander John Hollander 2013 American English
12384 Tesserae John Hollander 1993 American English
12112 No Nature Gary Snyder 1992 American English
11026 Poems Of Charles Simic Charles Simic 1985 American English
8738 Poems Of Mark Strand Mark Strand 1964 American English
11651 The Continuous Life Mark Strand 1990 American English
12384 Dark Harbor Mark Strand 1993 American English
11651 The World Of The Ten Thousand Things Charles Wright 1990 American English
9927 Dimensions Of History Jay Wright 1976 American English
10408 The Double Invention Of Komo Jay Wright 1980 American Unknown
11275 Poems Of Jay Wright Jay Wright 1987 American English
11391 Elaine's Book Jay Wright 1988 American Unknown
11888 Boleros Jay Wright 1991 American English
11651 Westward Amy Clampitt 1990 American English
10260 The Ether Dome And Other Poems Allen Grossman 1979 American English
9356 Poems Of Howard Moss Howard Moss 1971 American English
11391 River Writing James Applewhite 1988 American English
11651 The Rest Of The Way J. D. McClatchy 1990 American English
10136 A Call In The Midst Of The Crowd Alfred Corn 1978 American Unknown
10556 The Revisionist Douglas Crase 1981 American English
12384 Selected Poems Rita Dove 1993 American English
12384 Small Congregations Thylias Moss 1993 American English
12656 Earthly Measures Edward Hirsch 1994 American English
7651 Angels In America Tony Kushner 1991 American English