Herman Melville

1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4051-3158-2
Verlag: Wiley

Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 365 g

Reihe: Blackwell Introductions to Literature

This unique introduction explores Herman Melville as he described himself in Billy Budd-"a writer whom few know." Moving beyond the recurring depiction of Melville as the famous author of Moby-Dick, this book traces his development as a writer while providing the basic tools for successful critical reading of his novels.


- Offers a brief introduction to Melville, covering all his major works

- Showcases Melville's writing process through his correspondence with Nathaniel Hawthorne

- Provides a clear sense of Melville's major themes and preoccupations

- Focuses on Typee, Moby-Dick, and Billy Budd in individual chapters

- Includes a biography, summary of key works, interpretation, commentary, and an extensive bibliography.

Zielgruppe

undergraduates, postgraduates, faculty and others studying or otherwise interested in Herman Melville and the nineteenth-century American novel

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kelley, Wyn

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Einzelne Autoren: Monographien & Biographien
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Texts and Abbreviations.
List of Illustrations.

Acknowledgments.

Preface.

Part I: Introduction.

1. Melville’s Life.

2. ‘Agatha’ and the Invention of Narrative.

Part II: Melville’s Early Yarns.

3. ‘Making Literary Use of the Story’: Typee and Omoo.

4. ‘A Regular Story Founded on Striking Incidents’: Mardi, Redburn, and White-Jacket.

Part III: Writing New Gospel in Moby-Dick and Pierre.

5. ‘So Much of Pathos & So Much of Depth’: Moby-Dick.

6. ‘All Tender Obligations’: Pierre.

Part IV: Turning a New Leaf: Short Fiction, Israel Potter, and The Confidence-Man.

7. ‘A Leaf from Professional Experience’: Short Fiction of the 1850s.

8. ‘Peculiarly Latitudinarian Notions’: Israel Potter and The Confidence-Man.

Part V: Melville’s Later Career.

9. ‘Fulness & Veins & Beauty’: Battle-Pieces and Clarel.

10. ‘Different Considerations’: Late Poetry.

11. ‘Instinct with Significance’: Billy Budd.

Afterword: ‘Restoring To You Your Own Property’: Owning Melville.

Appendix: The ‘Agatha’ Correspondence.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Wyn Kelley is a Senior Lecturer in the Literature Faculty at MIT. She is the author of Melville's City: Literary and Urban Form in Nineteenth-Century New York (1996) and editor of A Companion to Herman Melville (Blackwell, 2006) and an edition of Benito Cereno 2006, and has also written a number of essays on Melville. She is Associate Director of the Melville Society journal Leviathan.