Allan Bloom Essays

  • The Purpose of Love

    1592 Words  | 4 Pages

    have however been replaced with a more contemporary view, particularly in Western societies. Allan Bloom details this transition in his work Love and Friendship. Bloom argues that the idea of “eros” has lost its true meaning; it has been morphed into a selfish and self-less act of mere sex: “Eros, in its Freudian version, is really all just selfishness and provides no basis for intimate human connection” (Bloom 24). Sex is no longer a form of a strong, intimate connection, but rather our contemporaries

  • American Education System Distorted Analysis

    1760 Words  | 4 Pages

    American Higher Education in Crisis?: What Everyone Needs to Know discusses the problems of affordability and argues that there are few people who can afford the constantly increasing tuition price of college. At first glance, it might seem that Allan

  • Literary Utopian Societies

    1741 Words  | 4 Pages

    system (Morely iii, Bloom xiii). The privileged class that ruled the society also enforced censorship in order to keep control over the Republic (Manuel 5). To perform all of the lowly tasks of the society, a system of slavery was enforced (Manuel 9). In addition, different forms of propaganda were used to keep the citizens in check (Manuel 5, Bloom xiv). The political and economic systems, in which the wealthy class controlled all the funds, were extremely restrictive (Mumford 4, Bloom xiii). With the

  • Faulkner's Condemnation of the South in Absalom, Absalom

    1356 Words  | 3 Pages

    condemnation of the mores and morals of the South. Faulkner's strong condemnation of the values of the South emanates from the actual story of the Sutpen family whose history must be seen as connected to the history of the South (Bloom 74).  Quentin tells this story in response to a Northerner's question:  "What is the South like?"   As the novel progresses, Quentin is explaining the story of the Sutpen myth and revealing it to the reader.  Faulkner says that the duty

  • Constructivism

    2610 Words  | 6 Pages

    of Constructivism Constructivism is a defined, when referring to the learner, as a "receptive act that involves construction of new meaning by learners within the context of their current knowledge, previous experience, and social environment" (Bloom; Perlmutter & Burrell, 1999). Also, real life experiences and previous knowledge are the stepping stones to a constructivism, learning atmosphere. (Spigner-Littles & Anderson, 1999). Constructivism involves the learner being responsible for learning

  • The Ambiguity of Shakespeare's Ambiguous Hamlet

    1884 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ambiguity of Hamlet In Shakespeare’s dramatic tragedy Hamlet, the reader finds ambiguity of one type and another here and there throughout the play. The protagonist himself is an especially ambiguous character is his own rite. Harold Bloom in the Introduction to Modern Critical Interpretations: Hamlet expounds on the ambiguity and mysterious conduct of the hero during the final act: When Horatio responds that Claudius will hear shortly from, presumably that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

  • Christmas in Trinidad and Tobago

    801 Words  | 2 Pages

    Christmas in Trinidad and Tobago “When Santa Clause arrives in Trinidad and Tobago, it is to the rhythm of Parang. The climate is warm and the flowers are in bloom, which makes for a colorful season.” This quote from writer Bill Egan wonderfully describes Christmas on my twin island home of Trinidad and Tobago where the holiday is celebrated in a most unique way with many ingrained traditions. By mid-November, the stores of the capital city, Port-of-Spain, are flooded with early Christmas

  • Rich, Adrienne. Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998. NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999.

    1330 Words  | 3 Pages

    new meaning in each of the many sections of the poem. Body to body and heart to heart. Physical communication goes beyond the typical interpretation of sex and can be an internal process. Rich starts her poem with such an acknowledgement, “-warm bloom of blood in the child’s arterial tree” (53). This first line helps to establish life – the life of a child and the life of the poem. The tree in itself gives solidity in genealogical meaning - generations have come before and generations will follow

  • So You Want to Be an Astronaut

    1474 Words  | 3 Pages

    a magazine subscription. I got the card at the Johnson Space Center in Houston last summer. The space center is a sixteen-hundred-acre compound filled with lush grass and cream-colored buildings of different shapes and sizes. Satellite dishes bloom like flowers throughout the compound, and the only buildings open to the public are a museum, the rocket park, and mission control. After climbing through a mock-up of the space shuttle, pretending to be Sally Ride, I passed by an information kiosk

  • Phosphates and dissolved oxygen

    819 Words  | 2 Pages

    Phosphates are present in many natural waters, such as lakes and streams. Phosphates are essential to aquatic plant growth, but too much phosphate can lead to the growth of algae and results in an algae bloom. Too much algae can cause a decrease in the amount in dissolved oxygen in the water. Oxygen in water is affected in many different ways by phosphates Phosphorus is usually present in natural waters as phosphate(Mcwelsh and Raintree, 1998). Phosphates are present in fertilizers and laundry detergents

  • Planning a 12 week scheme of work

    2201 Words  | 5 Pages

    theories of learning and what influences planning. •     Assessment through the use of a self-evaluation pro-forma. •     Motivational and Equal Opportunities issues. •     Self –Evaluation. Lesson content and building blocks of lesson planning Benjamin Bloom developed an analysis of academic learning behaviours in the field of education, known as Bloom’s Taxonomy. These behaviours were categorized into three interrelated and overlapping learning domains; Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor domains. In

  • Gerard Manley Hopkins

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    1918. Hopkins age was defined by the change from romanticism to realism. This was a slow change but it was one that was greatly needed by Hopkins. His work was not very well liked by people because it was about things that were against the church (Bloom p.90). During his time this was a big mistake, but in the same sense this portrayed realism to its fullest. Although some of Hopkins’ poems seem disturbing, they are actually excellent pieces of work. He portrayed realism by only writing about things

  • daves American Civil War

    1136 Words  | 3 Pages

    Union army pushed the Confederate army further south. The Union captured Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. This is where I had to take over reporting the war for my brother Mike Bloom who was killed in the line of duty. It was his job that's is now mine John Bloom to report for the Union Observer. After these courageous Union victories the Confederate army General Sidney Johnston was forced to abandon much of west and middle Tennessee as well as Kentucky. Johnston felt

  • Acceptance of Loss of Time in Sonnet 73 and When I have Fears

    2198 Words  | 5 Pages

    Shakespeare portrays the ending of time. His systematic representation of familiar concepts as symbols of time passage and models of life creates three individual paralleled sonnets that join at the poem’s conclusion to form a collaborated theme (Bloom 12). Shakespeare begins with the broad season of autumns and gets progressively more specific as he discusses twilight, a smaller frame of reference, and eventually ashes, the one nonlinear metaphor that is the most specific of the three (Vendler

  • Objectification of Women in The House of Mirth

    2117 Words  | 5 Pages

    are all.  Women have a decorative function in such an environment, and even her name, Lily, suggests she is a flower of femininity, i.e. an object of decoration as well as of desirability to the male element.  We see this is very true once Lily's bloom fades, as it were, a time when she is cast aside by her peers no longer being useful as something to admire on the surface.  The theme of the novel in this aspect is that identity based on mere appearance is not enough to sustain the human soul physically

  • Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter - Effects of Sin Upon Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale

    839 Words  | 2 Pages

    is the fact that he keeps his sin a secret. Arthur Dimmesdale's sin was the same as Hester's, except he never confessed. "As God's servant, it is his nature to tell the truth, so the years of pretending and hypocrisy were especially hard on him." (Bloom 28) Dimmesdale also believes that his sin has taken the meaning out of his life. His life's work has been dedicated to God, and now his sin has tainted it. He feels that he is a fraud and is not fit to lead the people of the town to salvation. His

  • Analysis of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels

    1359 Words  | 3 Pages

    general is displayed in this act.  Another display of this is the fact that Gulliver is used as the Emperor's absolute weapon, but the emperor only uses him to conquer his world of two islands.  This makes the emperor's ambition seem extremely low (Bloom, Interpretations 84-5). Swift also criticizes the religious beliefs of the Lilliputians and England in the first story.  In Lilliput, Ministers were chosen strictly on agility, or their ability to walk a tightrope or stick jumping.  They were able

  • Comparing the Role of Women in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Go Tell It On the Mountain

    2113 Words  | 5 Pages

    (1937). : Urbana, Ill.: U of Illinois P, 1937. Kubitschek, Missy Dehn. " ‘Tuh de Horizon and Back': The Female Quest in Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Modern Critical Interpretations: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Pondrom, Cyrena N. "The Role of Myth in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God." American Literature 58.2 (May 1986): 181-202. Williams, Shirley Anne. Forward. Their Eyes Were Watching God. By Zora Neale

  • The Beauty of the Lack of Structure in My Antonia

    1584 Words  | 4 Pages

    According to James E. Miller Jr.'s, "My Antonia; A Frontier Drama of Time," Willa Cather's novel, one of her most important and perhaps most popular works, is "defective in structure" (Bloom, 21).  He quotes E. K. Brown, who defends that: " 'Everything in the book is there to convey a feeling, not to tell a story, not to establish a social philosophy, not even to animate a group of characters'" (21).  The reader undoubtedly feels the impact of the story of Antonia and Jim as Cather intended, but

  • Freedom and Liberty in Wordsworth's Prefatory Sonnet

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    poem to its close. Nuns fret not at their Convents' narrow room; And Hermits are contented with their Cells; And Students with their pensive Citadels; Maids at the Wheel, the Weaver at his Loom, Sit blithe and happy; Bees that soar for bloom, High as the highest Peak of Furness Fells, Will murmur by the hour in Foxglove bells; In truth, the prison, unto which we doom Ourselves no prison is: and hence to me, In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's