How did Harold Bloom explain literary influence in The Anxiety of Influence?

In his influential work The Anxiety of Influence (1973), American literary critic Harold Bloom proposed a provocative theory regarding the nature of poetic creation. He argued that poetry does not emerge from a vacuum but is instead the result of poets deliberately "misreading" the works of their predecessors.1

Bloom posited that later poets experience a profound psychological struggle—an "anxiety"—when confronted with the overwhelming achievements of the literary figures who came before them. To overcome this burden and establish their own creative identity, poets must engage in a process of creative misinterpretation. By distorting or "misreading" the work of their precursors, they clear the necessary imaginative space to produce original art. This theory, which he further developed in A Map of Misreading (1975), became a cornerstone of his critical reputation and provided a systematic framework for understanding the evolution of literary tradition.1