'Good poets borrow, great poets steal'

I came away from the class presentation today thinking about the T.S. Eliot quote mentioned and was able to write a few words connecting my Capstone class to my Critical Theory class. I thought I would share what I produced for todays blog.

‘The Anxiety of Influence: The Anxiety of Criticism’
I came across a long heralded quote today in my literary Capstone class; ‘Good poets borrow, great poets steal’. T.S. Eliot’s words seem to highlight the very section I will be discussing; pages 5-9 in ‘The Anxiety of Influence’ by Harold Bloom. Throughout the introduction, Bloom suggests that while other critics have argued that poetic influence, or ‘borrowing’, is absolutely detrimental to the work of the poet and allows no room for natural passions or creative originality, he believes that poetic influence does not make poets less original. Rather, ‘[poetic influence] makes them more original, though not therefore necessarily better’ (7).
Bloom’s work attempts to dismantle the existing truths about poetic influence and the weight placed on the influence of existing poetry on poetics and artists. On page 5 in the introduction, Bloom claims that ‘poetic history […] is held to be indistinguishable from poetic influence, since strong poets make that history by misreading one another, so as to clear imaginative space for themselves’. Blooms suggestion in the first pages of the introduction is reminiscent of the aforementioned Eliot quote. Great poets steal ideas from other artists, but not necessarily the idea specific to that artist, therefore creating an entirely new space in literary history. Everything that is only exists as an extension of everything that was.
Of course, Bloom only concerns himself with ‘strong poets’. Strong poets realize if they lack the strength to overcome the anxiety of influence, like Oscar Wilde. According to Bloom, ‘weaker talents idealize; figures of capable imagination appropriate for themselves’ (5). Influence is something that exists within the realm of creativity, and just as Bloom suggests that every disciple takes away something from his master, he focuses on that fact that it is almost impossible to be wholly original.
Pages 8-9 in Bloom’s introduction discuss the element of wisdom in poetic influence; who has it, who lacks in it, and who are condemned or strengthened by it. Bloom’s argument for ‘The Anxiety of Influence’ is that strong poets are condemned to certain amount of ‘unwisdom’, the creative minds protest against the element of death and loss of time. Artists are able to create and in that realm of creation often lose touch with the reality of death, time ending, and new time beginning again. Geoffrey Hartman, as referenced by Bloom, states that ‘art fights nature on natures own ground’, a premise for the introduction and the book as a whole.
Artists dismiss the idea of death and loss just as some critics dismiss the idea of poetic influence having little positive effect on the originality of the poet. Perhaps Bloom is trying to point out that while artists often dismiss the affects of time and reality, opting to create their own sense of reality, literary critics like to dismiss the idea that originality can exist alongside poetic influence. Most importantly, Bloom emphasizes that originality has to exist alongside poetic influence, because it cannot exist any other way.