Who

America's best-known literary critic, the prolific Bloom defends the Old School from his perch as Sterling Professor of the Humanities and English at Yale.

Backstory

The Bronx-raised son of working-class Orthodox Jewish Russian immigrants, Bloom attended Bronx Science (which was then an all-boys school) before landing a scholarship to Cornell. He later attended grad school at Yale, staying on as a faculty member after earning his doctorate. That's where he's been ever since (he switched from Yale's English department to humanities in the mid-'70s); he also spent 1988 to 2004 moonlighting as an English professor at NYU. Over the last several decades, Bloom has become America's chief defender of the literary canon, defending it from what he sees as postmodern Barbarians intent on destroying it.

Of note

Bloom has pumped out a staggering number of books over the past forty-odd years. In 1973 made his reputation with The Anxiety of Influence (which pointedly criticized the work of the Yale English department, and undoubtedly helped provoke his department switch at Yale) and cemented his standing as an intellectual force with The Book of J in 1990. Bloom earned a $600,000 advance for his 1994 book The Western Canon, in which he argued that Shakespeare's work is the artistic heart of Western civilization. He then railed against philosophy in his 2004 book Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?, and pondered the various faces of God in 2005's Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine.

Scandal

In 2004, noted feminist author Naomi Wolf wrote an article in New York magazine accusing Bloom of sexually harassing her when she was a Yale undergraduate two decades earlier. (His reputed pick-up line: "You have the aura of election about you.") The accusations were particularly damaging because they came after a GQ article reporting that Bloom's dalliances with students were an open secret. The article went on to claim that Bloom would enlist his paramours to perform menial tasks, from chauffeuring him around (he hates to drive) to hand-feeding him roast beef subs.

The look

His corpulence, huge jowls, and bushy eyebrows have led to frequent comparisons with vaudeville comedian and The Producers star Zero Mostel.

Medical file

In 1990, Bloom nearly died because of a bleeding ulcer; he suffered a minor heart attack soon after, and had to undergo triple bypass surgery.

Personal

Despite his reputed affairs with Yale students, Bloom has been married to wife Jeanne for nearly 50 years; they have two adult sons. His elder son Daniel has a chronic disability (the family is secretive about its exact nature but it's believed to be schizophrenia) that has required near-constant medical attention over the last 30 years. Some have speculated that Bloom's prolific output over these decades has been motivated in part by a need to pay for his son's medical care. In addition to his residence in New Haven, Bloom maintains an apartment in Greenwich Village that is, unsurprisingly, crammed with books.

No joke

His reading and memorization skills are legendary—he claims to read 1,000 pages per hour (that's one every three and a half seconds) and to have memorized all of Paradise Lost, among many other works.