The History of Poetic Influence

Blooms central principle is that influence is intellectual revisionism and this is very different from having a common ancestor influence. bloom always proceeds by a misreading of the prior poet and an act of creative correction that is actually and necessarily a misinterpretation he reminds us that if we look to the etymology of influence that the word was first used to mean an ethereal inflowing from the stars one that would affect one's character and one's destiny. He supplies examples of Blake's tiger, Job's Leviathan, Captain Ahab's white whale and of course Ezekiel's covering cherub as dazzling personification of divine inspiration.