I am almost ashamed to admit this (but not so much that I’m not afraid to admit it here), but it wasn’t until recently that I realized that Harold Bloom and Allan Bloom were different people. I’m feeling a bit naïve now, which is fine, but this is also a lesson I’m learning: I’m constantly re-learning and discovering my assumptions are often wrong. I think the two Blooms were so easily conflatable in my mind because I had only read a little bit of Harold Bloom’s work when I was an undergraduate, and have only read or heard about Allan Bloom in passing — I haven’t read anything by him. And then, once I was teaching middle school, while the ideas of these two public intellectuals were important, I was more interested in focusing on teaching and on the larger political debates about multiculturalism, inclusion, canonicity, and culture (termed The Culture Wars) to focus on specific names of scholars. Once I was in graduate school and focusing on rhetoric and writing, neither Bloom ever came up in conversation (except a mention of Harold Bloom in my New Historicism class).
It also seems easy to conflate the two because (besides that both their first names have variances of the vowel a) they both so ardently defend the Western Canon. I’m prompted to write this because I recently read “Revising the Culture Wars” (New York Times) and this Inside Higher Ed article about Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind (both via Blogora). Now, if I only had more time to read more…
The more we read the more books we realize we haven’t read. We’re all quite ignorant, but usually defensive and proud of the little twists of learning we have managed to acquire.
The two Blooms have both figured somewhat prominently in my own intellectual autobiography. Harold has grown less interesting as my own interest in the profession of literature has waned, largely for reasons that Allen articulated.
I am drawn to some of Longfellow, the late Auden, the late Eliot. . .
I was in graduate school when the The Closing of the American Mind was published. I did a review of it in a graduate course, and was shocked at the fury the book evoked in my professor. His shrill and inaccurate and surprisingly ignorant attack on Bloom made vivid to me how correct Bloom was about some things.
I was inspired to read Allen Bloom’s translation of The Republic and his introduction to that translation. I thought it sublime.
I thought I remembered that Mike Rose and Allan Bloom had both addressed the issue from different sides, so I did a quick search and found Karl Heit’s article “Onomastic Mirroring: “The Closing of the American Mind” By Allan Bloom and “Lives on the Boundary” by Mike Rose. According to the abstract:
Although Allan Bloom in “The Closing of the American Mind” and Mike Rose in “Lives on the Boundary” reveal an almost endless list of obvious differences of perspective on literacy and higher education in America, both take divergent yet similar routes to create a permanent place for liberal education. Both Bloom and Rose use the “Gothic Cathedral” metaphor to describe the spiritual aspect of literacy, examining the youthful passion which leads to the uplifting freedom and empowerment of the soul. Both promote freedom from mediocrity and limitations for their students; both want their students to benefit directly from stored knowledge. Based on years of experience in preparing students for productive careers and successful adult lives, both argue for student competence in the social and cultural language of democracy. Despite the differences in emphasis and example, Bloom and Rose are complementary in that both represent a dynamic and passionate search for literacy. As their arguments emerge, reflections and duplications of each other become evident. To omit or devalue one of the viewpoints would be to remove the spiritual focus as well as an integral part of this complex issue. (KEH)
from Onomastic which is on ERIC database. So, while few would conflact Bloom and Rose (though a Rose can bloom), they seem to be on a track somehow. The two I keep mixing up are Allan Bloom and Richard Rorty, perhaps because Rose also challenged Rorty’s narrow view. And here’s information on an article I read a few years ago that also links Rose and Bloom:
“Allan Bloom, Mike Rose, and Paul Goodman: In Search of a Lost Pedagogical Synthesis” Jeff Smith
College English, Vol. 55, No. 7 (Nov., 1993), pp. 721-744.
Just a quick reply at the end of the day.
Thanks Sara! I would never have thought to put A. Bloom and Rose in the same “box.” And It’s interesting to me that you conflate Bloom and Roty, since Bloom seems to be pretty modernist and conservative while Rorty seems to be pretty postmodern and leftist (from my understanding). I’ll try to check out these resources sometime in the (probably somewhat distant) future.