On MelvilleLouis J. Budd, Edwin Harrison Cady Duke University Press, 1988 - 277 pages From 1929 to the latest issue, American Literature has been the foremost journal expressing the findings of those who study our national literature. The journal has published the best work of literary historians, critics, and bibliographers, ranging from the founders of the discipline to the best current critics and researchers. The longevity of this excellence lends a special distinction to the articles in American Literature. Presented in order of their first appearance, the articles in each volume constitute a revealing record of developing insights and important shifts of critical emphasis. Each article has opened a fresh line of inquiry, established a fresh perspective on a familiar topic, or settled a question that engaged the interest of experts. |
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Ahab Ahab's American Literature appears artistic Arvin Babo Babo's bachelors Bartleby Benito Cereno Billy Budd Captain cetological chapters character chimney Clarel cock Cock-A-Doodle-Doo comic confidence Confidence-Man crew critics crow death Delano Duyckinck earlier early Emerson epilogue essay evil experience F. O. Matthiessen fact Faust Faustian fiction final genialist Harrison Hayford Hawthorne Hawthorne's heart Herman Melville human humor Ibid Ishmael Israel Potter Jimmy Rose later letter literary man's Mardi Melville's Merrymusk mind Moby Dick Moby-Dick moral mutiny mystery narrative narrator narrator's Nathaniel Hawthorne nature Negroes novel passages Pequod Pierre poem Queequeg quest R. W. B. Lewis Radney reader reality Redburn Review sailor satire secret seems sense slave social soul spirit Steelkilt story suggests symbolic tale Templars theme things Thoreau thought Timon Timon-like tion tragic truth University Vere Vere's ville's vision voice voyage whale White-Jacket wife writing York
Popular passages
Page 220 - What I feel most moved to write, that is banned, — it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot.
Page 213 - There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no, — why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag, — that is to say, the Ego.
Page 77 - The heart, the heart, — there was the little yet boundless sphere wherein ex-isted the original wrong of which the crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. Purify that inward sphere, and the many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which now seem almost our only re-alities, will turn to shadowy phantoms and vanish of their own accord ; but if we go no deeper than the in-tellect, and strive, with merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify what is wrong, our whole...
Page 29 - Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike.
Page 35 - It is a frightful poetical creed that the cultivation of the brain eats out the heart. But it's my prose opinion that in most cases, in those men who have fine brains and work them well, the heart extends down to hams. And though you smoke them with the fire of tribulation, yet, like veritable hams, the head only gives the richer and the better flavor.
Page 145 - I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it.
Page 32 - I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals.
Page 14 - But, far as any geologist has yet gone down into the world, it is found to consist of nothing but surface stratified on surface. To its axis, the world being nothing but superinduced superficies. By vast pains we mine into the pyramid ; by horrible gropings we come to the central room ; with joy we espy the sarcophagus ; but we lift the lid — and no body is there ! — appallingly vacant as vast is the soul of a man...
Page 119 - I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.
Page 24 - Not that half only, individualism, which isolates. There is another half, which is adhesiveness or love, that fuses, ties and aggregates, making the races comrades, and fraternizing all.