CONCEPT
Strangeness (Bloomian)
Bloom's name for the quality he prized above every other in literary work — the uncanny property of a text that resists easy assimilation, exceeds its sources, and cannot be explained by reference to the tradition from which it emerged.
Strangeness is the quality Bloom valued above almost every other literary property — the uncanny property of a text that resists easy assimilation, that forces the reader into a new relationship with language and experience, that cannot be explained by reference to its sources because the sources have been so thoroughly transformed by the creative act that they are no longer visible in the result. Shakespeare's characters are strange: they resist reduction to their sources in Plutarch or Holinshed because Shakespeare's creative misreading of those sources produced personalities so complex, so autonomous, that they exceed any account of their origins. Dickinson's poems are strange: compressed, asymmetric, punctuated by dashes that introduce gaps no predecessor's influence can explain. AI output is not strange. It is the opposite of strange: it is expected.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Strangeness is the signature of the daemon — the mark left by a creative force that