Written in a moving personal style, anchored by concrete examples, and memorable quotes, this second edition of Bloom's classic work maintains that the anxiety of influence cannot be evaded -- neither by poets nor by responsible readers and critics. A new Introduction, centering upon Shakespeare and Marlowe, explains the genesis of Bloom's thinking, and the subsequent influence of the book on literary criticism of the past twenty years.

This new edition is certain to find a responsive audience among the new generation of scholars, students, and readers interested in the Bloom canon.

"Bloom has helped to make the study of Romantic poetry as intellectually and spiritually challenging a branch of literary studies as one may find". -- The New York Times Book Review

"This book will assuredly come to be valued as a major twentieth-century statement on the subject of tradition and individual talent". -- David J. Gordon, The Yale Review