哈罗德•布鲁姆是美国著名的批评家，在西方学术界享有很高的声望。《西方正典》是其在1994年出版的文学批评著作。书中布鲁姆从西方文学史上遴选出二十六位代表作家以及他们的堪称经典的代表作品逐一加以论述，力图确立关于“西方正典”的观念，建立起一套正典谱系。布鲁姆把莎士比亚作为西方经典的核心，并且将之置于与几乎所有其他作家的关联中进行审视。这种关联分为三类：影响莎士比亚、被莎士比亚影响以及试图反对莎士比亚。布鲁姆的“影响的焦虑”的诗学理论、他的以“审美自主性”为标志的文学经典观以及用文学经典来反对“文化研究”的主张共同作用生成了《西方正典》，这一文本既是焦虑的结果，也是焦虑本身。“影响的焦虑”无关真正的或想象的父亲是谁，它是借助于诗歌、小说或戏剧并在它们之中出现的一种焦虑：即害怕和担心自己的作品丧失个性、成为前人作品的复制品。一位真正的经典作家或许会也或许不会把这种焦虑在作品中予以内化，但这无关大局，因为强有力的作品本身就是这种焦虑。面对批评家们纷纷将文学经典用作维护政治、种族、性别等它途之用而回避文学的审美性，布鲁姆着力探究莎士比亚的艺术原创性和无功利性，试图把人们重新拉回到文学经典的审美价值上来。布鲁姆的莎评是在一种特殊语境下的对浪漫主义莎评的回归，虽然依旧赋予莎士比亚在西方正典中的至高无上地位，但其目的不是要回到浪漫主义莎评并把莎士比亚神化，而是要重新举起审美主义的大旗，对西方经典进行正本清源，以此来挽回越走越远离文学的文学研究。国内学界在面对《西方正典》时更多的是引用布鲁姆的意图为己所用，而缺乏对理论文本的细读研究；在面对“文化研究”大潮时更是论争纷呈，这也显示了国内文学研究在利用西方理论资源时的无所适从的困境。其实，文学研究在面对文化语境的时候，固然不能因固守于文学的圈子而拒斥文化的思考，但一旦涉及到文化的考量，则必须明确坚守文学的立场，在文学的文化研究意义上作较深入的开拓，同时要注意对相关研究方式的融合。

Harold Bloom, the well-known American modern critic, has a high reputation in the western academics. The Western Canon is his famous work which was published in 1994. Bloom Selected twenty-six representative writers and their classical works from the Western literary history, then discussed them in order to establish the concept and pedigree of the Western Canon. Shakespeare is the center of the canon, and has been considered in relation to all the others. There are three types of the relation: those who affected Shakespeare, those who have been influenced by Shakespeare as well as those who attempted to reject Shakespeare.The generation of The Western Canon is due to the comprehensive effect of three essentials: “the Anxiety of Influence”, “aesthetic autonomy” and Bloom’s criticism against “the School of Resentment”. The anxiety of influence is not an anxiety about the father, real or literary, but an anxiety achieved by and in the poem, novel, or play. An authentic canonical writer may or may not internalize her or his work’s anxiety, but that scarcely matters, the strongly achieved work is the anxiety. The Western Canon is the result of the anxiety and also the anxiety itself.Bloom is trying to persuade people back to the aesthetic value of literature by striving to explore the art originality and disinterestedness of Shakespeare, while other critics are taking literary classics as the tool of maintaining politics, race and gender. Bloom’s criticism on Shakespeare is a revival of romantic Shakespeare criticism in the unusual historical situation. His intention is not getting the deification of Shakespeare but restating the aesthetic criticism in the area of literary studies. Domestic academics who are now in wretched plight just quote Bloom’s intention for its own use without a close reading of the text, and also be confused when facing with the “cultural studies”. In fact, the literary studies is always the study of literature even in the culture contexts. We should clearly adhere to the position of the literature, and then take the usage of other useful research methods.