ellauri052.html on line 171: The novel, which Bellow initially intended to be a short story, is a roman à clef about Bellow's friendship with the poet Delmore Schwartz. It explores the changing relationship of art and power in a materialist America. This theme is addressed through the contrasting careers of two writers, Von Humboldt Fleisher (to some degree a version of Schwartz) and his protégé Charlie Citrine (to some degree a version of Bellow himself).
ellauri108.html on line 184: Rastafarians typically avoid food produced by non-Rastas or from unknown sources. Rasta men refuse to eat food prepared by a woman while she is menstruating, and some will avoid food prepared by a woman at any time. Rastas also generally avoid alcohol, cigarettes, and hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine, presenting these substances as unnatural and dirty and contrasting them with cannabis. Rastas also often avoid mainstream scientific medicine and will reject surgery, injections, or blood transfusions. Instead they utilise herbal medicine for healing, especially teas and poultices, with cannabis often used as an ingredient.
ellauri110.html on line 126: The Houyhnhnms are rational equine beings and are masters of the land, contrasting strongly with the Yahoos, savage humanoid creatures who are no better than beasts of burden, or livestock. Whereas the Yahoos represent all that is bad about humans, Houyhnhnms have a settled, calm, reliable and rational society. Gulliver much prefers the Houyhnhnms' company to the Yahoos', even though the latter are biologically closer to him.
ellauri257.html on line 101: The story was initially published in 1835 as part of the Mirgorod collection of short stories, but a much expanded version appeared in 1842 with some differences in the storyline. The 1842 text has been described by Victor Erlich [ru] as a "paragon of civic virtue and a force of patriotic edification", contrasting the rhetoric of the 1835 version with its "distinctly Cossack jingoism".
ellauri389.html on line 67: The historical phenomenon transforming porcelain into the flexible economic symbol of "Old China" is imperialism, the recent "favourable circumstances" Elia points out to Bridget, that have enabled them to acquire such "trifles"as his teacup. In discounting the cup as a "trifle," Elia's comment acknowledges both the fall in prices and the rise in Elia's income brought about by the post-Napoleonic expansion of British global commerce, identifying both the general and specific forces that have increased his buying power. In fact, the porcelain trade was a key site of such economic growth spurred by empire and, as the contrasting consumer sentiments in Bridget and Elia's debate attest, is a powerful index to imperialism's recent rehabilitative impact on luxury consumption.
xxx/ellauri225.html on line 359: But Bloom’s insights don’t resonate deeply. He is too obsessed with comparing and contrasting, rather than allowing his responses to touch us deeply. He repeats his theory that poets always wrestle with the work of the poets that have come before them, either unconsciously or consciously, and then struggle to find their own voice in reaction to what has come before. There is something anti-transformative about his assertions, often tangled up with incomprehensible jargon.
6