His theory of poetic influence has been the leitmotif of Bloom's writings for many years, but it is only recently that he has presented it in full-blown theoretical fashion. He is indefatigable. In 1973 he published The Anxiety of Influence, a frantically allusive and aphoristic manifesto which ran through the "ratios of revision" in a rather exasperating way. Shortly afterward came A Map of Misreading, in which Bloom expounded his views more congenially, and adorned them with some extremely fine textual explications. Kabbalah and Criticism is his latest meditation on the subject, and at least two more titles have already been announced. While hardly "the cardinal work in Harold Bloom's critical enterprise," as its nonsensical dust jacket claims, Kabbalah and Criticism is nonetheless valuable in evaluating Bloom's entire enterprise. It is an intriguing, unconvincing book.

Bloom's theory was initially elaborated to explain the tradition of modern English verse, and...