Monumental Melville: The Formation of a Literary CareerMonumental Melville offers the first extended analysis of Melville's career to read his prose and the poetry that followed it as a legible sequence in a writing life. When Melville turned to poetry at mid-career, he deliberately abandoned the conventions of fiction and the shared public world they imply. Monumental Melville focuses first on the way Melville's growing disdain for fame "of the literary sort" informs Moby-Dick and Melville's later fiction, then goes on to offer close readings of his published verse, exposing a poetics of double-dealing based on an ironic interplay between the text and the contexts it allusively arouses. Countering the historical and political approaches that have marked Melville scholarship for the last two decades, the book emphasizes the significance of the literary to Melville and the essential role of close reading in understanding his work. By revealing and celebrating the form that makes Melville's poetry unique--and a logical development from his fiction--Monumental Melville makes a fundamental contribution to the new scholarly recognition of its value and importance. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Melvilles | 14 |
Portentous Form in BattlePieces | 66 |
Copyright | |
5 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
allusion ambiguous American appears associates Battle-Pieces Benito Cereno Bezanson biblical Billy Budd Bunker Hill Monument character Christ Clarel collection complicated Confidence-Man context corpse culture dead death dream echoes emphasize Epilogue epitaphic Essays face fiction figure Hawthorne heart heaven hence Herman Melville Hershel Parker Hillis Miller historical human imagination ironic irony Ishmael Israel Potter John Brown John Marr lines linking literary literature living marks Melville's poem Melville's Reading memory Milton Moby-Dick monument mute narrative narrator nature Nehemiah novel once Paradise Lost passage Pierre Pip's poem's poet poet's poetic poetry prophetic pyramid question reader relation representation represented Rolfe's Sealts seems sense sequel shadow Shurr silent speak stanza stone story suggests thee things Thomas Tanselle thou Timoleon tion tradition transformed University Press Vine Vine's voice White-Jacket William Wordsworth words Wordsworth writing York
References to this book
Arranging Grief: Sacred Time and the Body in Nineteenth-century America Dana Luciano Limited preview - 2007 |