Slieve Bloom, mountain range, 15 mi (24 km) long, central Republic of Ireland, on the border of Counties Laoighis and Offaly. The range, which rises to 1,733 ft (528 m) at Arderin, is the source of the Barrow River.

Bloom, Harold, 1930-, American literary critic and scholar, b. New York City. The son of Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Russia, educated at Cornell (B.A., 1951) and Yale Univ. (Ph.D., 1955), the distinguished critic, author, and academic is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale and Berg Professor of English at New York Univ. He has written more than 20 books and edited or written the introductions for some 400 other volumes. One of his best-known works, The Anxiety of Influence (1973), postulates a titanic Oedipal struggle in which great writers interpret and revolt against their literary fathers, a theme developed in A Map of Misreading (1974), Poetry and Repression (1976), and Agon (1982).

Bloom has also written studies of many individual authors, e.g., Shelley (1959), Blake (1963), Yeats (1970), Wallace Stevens (1977), and Shakespeare (1998). His wide-ranging literary concerns are represented in The Western Canon (1994), in which Bloom analyzes the works of 26 great masters; in How to Read and Why (2000), in which he presents a manual for literary enjoyment and enlightenment; and in Genius (2002), in which he explores the accomplishments of 100 great writers. His interest in religious and scriptural questions is apparent in such works as Ruin the Sacred Truths (1988), The Book of J (1990), in which he posits that a woman wrote part of the biblical Pentateuch, The American Religion (1992), and Jesus and Yahweh (2005). In addition to many academic and literary honors, Bloom was awarded a 1985 MacArthur fellowship.

Dense aquatic accumulation of microscopic organisms produced by an abundance of nutrients in surface water coupled with adequate sunlight for photosynthesis. The microorganisms or the toxic substances they release may discolour the water, exhaust its oxygen content, poison aquatic animals and waterfowl, and irritate the skin and respiratory tract of humans. Single species of algae, diatoms, or dinoflagellates, reproducing every few hours, may dominate a bloom's population; the number of individuals per quart (litre) of water, normally about 1,000, can increase to 60 million. Blooms of the dinoflagellate genus Gymnodinium cause red tides. The Red Sea is named for the occasional blooms of the alga Trichodesmium erythraeum. Seealso water pollution.

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(born July 11, 1930, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. literary critic. Bloom studied at Cornell and Yale universities and taught at Yale from 1955. In The Anxiety of Influence (1973) and A Map of Misreading (1975) he suggested that poetry results from poets deliberately misreading the works that both influence and threaten them. In The Book of J (1990) he speculated that the earliest known biblical texts were written by a woman with principally literary intentions. His best-selling The Western Canon (1994) identifies 26 canonical Western writers and argues against the politicization of literary study.

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(born July 11, 1930, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. literary critic. Bloom studied at Cornell and Yale universities and taught at Yale from 1955. In The Anxiety of Influence (1973) and A Map of Misreading (1975) he suggested that poetry results from poets deliberately misreading the works that both influence and threaten them. In The Book of J (1990) he speculated that the earliest known biblical texts were written by a woman with principally literary intentions. His best-selling The Western Canon (1994) identifies 26 canonical Western writers and argues against the politicization of literary study.

Learn more about Bloom, Harold with a free trial on Britannica.com.