Allan Bloom
Allan David Bloom (September 14, 1930 - October 7, 1992) was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, an only child to social worker parents. His mother was particularly well educated and ambitious, earning her degree at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. Bloom entered university at the age of fifteen, as part of the University of Chicago's early admission program for gifted students. In the Preface to Giants and Dwarfs, a collection of his essays published between 1960-1990, he states his education "began with Freud and ended with Plato". The theme of that education was self-knowledge, or self-discovery; a subject Bloom later remarked seemed impossible to conceive of as Midwestern American boy. Bloom credits Leo Strauss as the teacher which made this endeavour possible for him.
Allan Bloom earned his Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, in 1955. He also studied and taught abroad in Paris (1953-55) and Germany (1957). Upon returning to the United States he taught adult education students at the University of Chicago with his friend Werner J. Dannhauser, author of Nietzsche's View of Socrates. Bloom later taught at Yale, Cornell, Tel Aviv University and the University of Toronto, before returning to the University of Chicago.
During 1968, he published his most significant work of philosophical translation, interpretation and contemplation- The Republic of Plato. According to the objective assessment of online bookseller Alibris, "it is the first translation of Plato's Republic that attempts to be strictly literal, the volume has been long regarded as the closest and best English translation available." It is that and much more, a work of lasting interest and philosophical merit for students and teachers. Although the translation is far from universally accepted, Bloom strove to act as a matchmaker between readers and the texts he translated and interpreted. He repeated this effort while a Professor at the University of Toronto in 1978, translating Jean-Jacques Rousseau ’s Emile. Bloom was an editor for the scholarly journal Political Theory as well as a contributor to History of Political Philosophy edited by Joseph Cropsy and Leo Strauss among many other publications during his years of academic teaching.
After returning to Chicago, he met and taught courses with Saul Bellow winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature. Bellow wrote the Preface to The Closing of the American Mind in 1987, the book that made Bloom famous and rich. "Bellow immortalized his dead friend in the novel Ravelstein". In that story, Ravelstein is clearly based on Allan Bloom and it relates Bloom’s many interesting personal characteristics, which included his homosexuality. It is important to note that Allan Bloom never told his readers of his own homosexuality. He expressed to Bellow his disdain of the current movement for homosexual "rights". A movement he viewed as improperly attempting to piggy-back on the equality movements of blacks and ethnic minorities. Even while authoring his last work Love & Friendship, Bloom does not touch upon his own love life.