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A Companion to Herman Melville is the ideal resource for twenty-first century readers of Melville. In 35 original essays by scholars from around the world, it demonstrates the relevance of Melville to life today, not only as an American or Western writer, but also as an author who bridges racial, cultural, national and geographic divides to imagine a universe that is as rich and capacious as his worldwide readership. This is the first companion to consider Melville in a global context, and to look at the impact of global economies and technologies on the ways people read his works. In addition, it locates Melville in his cultural milieu - revising previous romantic views of his politics on race, gender, and democracy. Seen in this light, Melville is also revealed as a more contemporary writer than his readers have sometimes assumed.
List of contents
List of Illustrations xi
Notes on Contributors xii
Acknowledgments xx
Texts and Abbreviations xxi
Preface xxiii
Wyn Kelley Part I Travels 1 1 A Traveling Life
Laurie Robertson-Lorant 3 2 Cosmopolitanism and Traveling Culture
Peter Gibian 19 3 Melville's World Readers
A. Robert Lee 35 4 Global Melville
Paul Lyons 52 Part II Geographies 69 5 Science and the Earth
Bruce A. Harvey 71 6 Ships, Whaling, and the Sea
Mary K. Bercaw Edwards 83 7 Pacific Paradises
Alex Calder 98 8 Atlantic Trade
Hester Blum 113 9 Ancient Lands
Basem L. Ra'ad 129 Part III Nations 147 10 Democracy and its Discontents
Dennis Berthold 149 11 Urbanization, Class Struggle, and Reform
Carol Colatrella 165 12 Wicked Books: Melville and Religion
Hilton Obenzinger 181 13 Pierre's Bad Associations: Public Life in the Institutional Nation
Christopher Castiglia 197 14 Melville, Slavery, and the American Dilemma
John Stauffer 214 15 Gender and Sexuality
Leland S. Person 231 Part IV Libraries 247 16 The Legacy of Britain
Robin Grey 249 17 Romantic Philosophy, Transcendentalism, and Nature
Rachela Permenter 266 18 Literature of Exploration and the Sea
R. D. Madison 282 19 Death and Literature: Melville and the Epitaph
Edgar A. Dryden 299 20 The Company of Women Authors
Charlene Avallone 313 21 Hawthorne and Race
Ellen Weinauer 327 22 "Unlike Things Must Meet and Mate":
Melville and the Visual Arts
Robert K. Wallace 342 Part V Texts 363 23 The Motive for Metaphor:
Typee, Omoo, and Mardi Geoffrey Sanborn 365 24 Artist at Work:
Redburn, White-Jacket, Moby-Dick, and Pierre Cindy Weinstein 378 25 The Language of Moby-Dick:
"Read It If You Can"
Maurice S. Lee 393 26 Threading the Labyrinth: Moby-Dick as Hybrid Epic
Christopher Sten 408 27 The Female Subject in Pierre and The Piazza Tales
Caroline Levander 423 28 Narrative Shock in "Bartleby, the Scrivener,"
"The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids," and "Benito Cereno"
Marvin Fisher 435 29 Fluid Identity in Israel Potter and The Confidence-Man
Gale Temple 451 30 How Clarel Works
Samuel Otter 467 31 Melville the Realist Poet
Elizabeth Renker 482 32 Melville's Transhistorical Voice:
Billy Budd, Sailor and the Fragmentation of Forms
John Wenke 497 Part VI Meanings 513 33 The Melville Revival
Sanford E. Marovitz 515 34 Creating Icons:
Melville in Visual Media and Popular Culture
Elizabeth Schultz 532 35 The Melville Text
John Bryant 553 Index 567
About the author
Wyn Kelley is Senior Lecturer in the Literature Faculty at MIT. The author of
Melville's City: Literary and Urban Form in Nineteenth-Century New York (1996) and
A Short Guide to Herman Melville (Blackwell Publishing, 2008), she is also Associate Editor of the
Melville Electronic Library.
Summary
* * This comprehensive resource demonstrates the relevance of Melville s works in the twenty-first century. * Presents 35 original essays by scholars from around the world, representing a range of different approaches to Melville.
