On Monday, American literary critic, researcher and author Harold Bloom in New Haven, Connecticut, passed away after a period of illness, according to The Guardian.

Harold Bloom has authored more than 20 books, of which the best known is How to Read, and Why (2002) and the much-debated Western Cannon: Books and School of Eternal Times (2000).

In The Western Cannon, which sparked much debate when it arrived, Bloom lists 26 authors - from Samuel Beckett to Dante - who, he says, are the most important writer of Western literature. William Shakespeare praises Bloom as one of the foremost.

Inspired by poetry in Yiddish

Harold Bloom, born in the Bronx, New York in 1930. He was the youngest of a sibling of five and the family were Orthodox Jews who migrated to the United States from Russia.

Bloom's first encounter with literature was through poetry in Yiddish. He then opened the door to poets such as William Blake, TS Eliot and Hart Crane. Bloom's bookshelf was boundless. He himself has said that as a young man he could read a book of over 1,000 pages in one swipe.

Harold Bloom advocated an aesthetic assessment of literature as opposed to more ideology-oriented trends in literature, and he gained great influence in his field. At the same time, he also received sharp criticism.

Received criticism

Among other things, it was alleged that Bloom was a world-weary who repeatedly returned to a few themes. He also looked into other eyes. For example, he points out in The book of J (1990) that parts of the Bible have been written by a woman.

Although Harold Bloom's health was failing, he continued to write and teach at Yale University into the latter, his wife, Jeanne Bloom, tells The Guardian.

Harold Bloom turned 89 years old.