The Cambridge Introduction to Herman Melville

by Kevin J. Hayes

• ISBN13: 9780521671040
• ISBN10: 0521671043
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-03-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Despite its indifferent reception when it was first published in 1851, Moby Dick is now a central work in the American literary canon. This introduction offers readings of Melville's masterpiece, but it also sets out the key themes, contexts, and critical reception of his entire oeuvre. The first chapters cover Melville's life and the historical and cultural contexts. Melville's individual works each receive full attention in the third chapter, including Typee, Moby Dick, Billy Budd and the short stories. Elsewhere in the chapter different themes in Melville are explained with reference to several works: Melville's writing process, Melville as letter writer, Melville and the past, Melville and modernity, Melville's late writings. The final chapter analyses Melville scholarship from his day to ours. Kevin J. Hayes provides comprehensive information about Melville's life and works in an accessible and engaging book that will be essential for students beginning to read this important author.

Author Biography

Kevin J. Hayes is Professor of English at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
List of abbreviations	p. xi
Life	p. 1
Contexts	p. 12
The existential context	p. 12
The historical context	p. 13
The urban context	p. 14
The visual context	p. 16
The psychological context	p. 19
The American context	p. 20
The context of labor	p. 21
The context of slavery	p. 22
The world context	p. 23
The imaginative context	p. 23
Writings	p. 25
The faces of Types	p. 27
Omoo: the rover as flaneur	p. 33
Becoming a great writer: Mardi, Redburn, White-Jacket	p. 39
Confronting Moby-Dick	p. 46
Pierre: the making of a tragic hero	p. 60
Private letters	p. 67
Rewriting history: Israel Potter and "Benito Cereno"	p. 74
Modern man: "The Lightning-Rod Man," The Confidence-Man, "Bartleby, the Scrivener"	p. 81
Battle-Pieces: the voices of war	p. 87
Clarel, an American epic	p. 92
The return to prose: Burgundy Club sketches, John Marr	p. 99
Billy Budd: visions and revisions	p. 105
Reception	p. 112
Notes	p. 124
Guide to further reading	p. 130
Index	p. 135
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