The theory of anxiety of influence is a theory applied principally to early nineteenth century romantic poetry. Its author, Harold Bloom, maintains that the theory has general applicability to the study of literary tradition, ranging from Homer and the Bible to Thomas Pynchon and Anne Carson in the 20th and 21st century. It is based primarily on Bloom's belief that there is no such thing as an original poem, that every new composition is simply a misreading or misinterpretation of an earlier poem and that influence is unavoidable and inescapable; all writers inevitably, to some degree, adopt, manipulate or alter and assimilate certain aspects of the content or subject matter, literary style or form from their predecessors. To illustrate his point, Bloom quotes Oscar Wilde, noting that: