"When I was in his class

I felt as though I understood something amazingly deeply and well, and then the sense of understanding would dissipate when I left. Only the sense of awe remained."

This is exactly how I felt about my philosophy professor* (in Belfast in the late nineteen-sixties), but was written by Wendy Moffatt on Harold Bloom (1930-2019).

Bloom was 'a controversial figure' who worshipped Shakespeare.  I agree with his forthright opinion that the lives of the wretched and oppressed will not be improved by the privileged middle classes reading the bad (and often highly-praised) verses of those who claim to be (and co-opt, hence despise) the wretched and oppressed.

Unlike Bloom, however, I do not think that (unlike philosophy) poetry should be read aloud. It is exactly what led to 'performance poetry' (rather than thinkers' poetry) and on to the kind of well-performed, crowd-pleasing doggerel that publishers now like to print.

Poetry is best judged on the page.  Consider Eliot or Yeats – or Shakespeare.

*Bryce Gallie, late of Peterhouse, Cambridge.