The Anxiety of Influence

Influence anxiety ( engl. anxiety of influence ) is a term introduced by the American literary critic Harold Bloom term that the source and influence of research represented an innovation and presupposes a particular conception of literature.

A literary text is therefore not an autonomous and only self-referential work, but rather resembles a crossing point of intertextual effects. Intertextuality is thereby considered to be a conflict of authors, especially with key precursor figures.

The previous figure initiated by their example the new poet in the seal by a determinative superego represents for him the still weak successor must protect its originality against its forces.

The influence of anxiety as a mental representation of the poet's role model threatens the literary creativity. To succeed in this the Freudian father - son conflict resembling situation as an author, the so-called Da Costa must convert the influence of fear into a source of literary creativity.

After a complex process of deformation, destruction and repression of the precursor of this is eventually incorporated into his own work. In this respect differs Bloom for identifying textual strategies six different defense mechanisms that act on a rhetorical level, as tropics.

In Bloom's view of literary production all the texts of ephebes operate as revisionist ' translation ' of a predecessor text. The now strong poet has led his life, outlasting tradition and to assert his authorship in the tension between inspiring and threatening depending on the embodied literary tradition and its own creativity to power to enter into an ( aesthetic ) will.