The Redemption of Egotism: James and Proust as Spiritual Exercises

Abstract

Based on Harold Bloom's recommendations on what to read and why, it is proposed that imaginative literature, rather than argumentative literature, is the most efficient way to achieve intellectual autonomy. A kind of autonomy that frees one from stereotypical ways of thinking about human beings. These approaches are then extrapolated to the writers James and Proust as examples of creators of works that liberate egotism.