Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow: What can be the use of a poetry that has no true subject except the poet's own selfhood? The traditional use of poetry in the Western world has been instruction through delight, where teaching has meant the common truths or common deceptions of societal tradition, and where esthetic pleasure has meant a fulfillment of expectations founded upon past joys of the same design. But an individual psyche has its own accidents, which it needs to call truths, and its own necessity for self‐recognition, which requires the pleasures of originality, even if those pleasures depend upon a kind of lying against time, and against the achievements of the past. The use of such poetry demands to be seen in a deidealized way, if it is to be seen more truly. ‐ Harold Bloom, “The Use of Poetry”
Which option best describes the instructional component of the “traditional use of poetry” in Bloom’s passage?
Promoting serious ideas
Promoting serious ideas is the closest description of the instructional component. Bloom associates teaching with socially inherited truths or deceptions; fulfilling expectations based on previous pleasures describes the separate aesthetic component.
Important Questions from Reading Comprehension
- Which framework globally guides national policies on Community Centered Disaster Risk Reduction?
- In the context of disaster governance, which principle emphasizes empowering local to take the lead in risk mitigation strategies?
- What distinguishes participatory disaster management from top-down approaches?
- Which of the following is a major barrier to effective local disaster risk reduction implementation in developing countries?
- How can technology most effectively support community-based disaster resilience?
