In order to vividly describe the internal relationship between the influence of poetry and anxiety, Bloom borrowed the "family romance" model of Freud's psychoanalysis. The formation of a powerful poet's "ego" is an unconscious and irreversible process. In this process, the image of the former poet always exists in the self of the latter poet. The relationship between them is like the confrontation between father and son in Freud's Family Romance.
As a result, the poet later formed an anxiety complex about influence. Because the skills and patterns of poetry were excavated by predecessors thousands of years ago, later, if poets want to get ahead, they have to innovate on the original basis.
Then, under normal circumstances, some innovative poems we see seem novel, but in fact some later poets have strengthened the secondary and inconspicuous characteristics of their predecessors in their "self", thus causing some illusion. It seems that what we see is the innovative poems of some poets.
In the book Anxiety of Influence, Bloom consciously used many symbolic and profound images out of anxiety about influence, and made great efforts to find and use some obscure terms from the old papers of eastern and western cultures. Moreover, he also mentioned such a statement in the book. He said: "When I talk about the anxiety of influence, I don't want to have a Freudian father-son struggle, although there are one or two places in this book that are a little hearty."
In fact, from the text of this book, we readers can also see that Bloom advocates a Shakespeare-style interpretation of Freud, because it can be seen from the dispute between father and son in Freud's Family Romance, and in the book, the author himself explains, "I advocate a Shakespeare-style interpretation of Freud, not a Freudian interpretation of Shakespeare or others. This is Bloom's "misreading" of poetry.
In this book, there is such a passage that makes people remember deeply, but it also feels rough and difficult to understand. Bloom concluded that every poem is a misinterpretation of the mother poem. A poem is not the overcoming of anxiety, but the anxiety itself. The misinterpretation of poets or poems, especially critics, is only a difference in degree, not in category.
In addition, in this book, the author has a unique understanding of it in combination with some actual literary poems. In a word, this book has some special views on poetry. Bloom combined his own unique views and some professional terms to elaborate his own views in depth.
After reading this book, I'm sorry I'm shallow, but many places really need to be reconsidered. Perhaps it is too theoretical and my understanding of poetry is not enough, so this book is really difficult to read.