The Errant Art of Moby-Dick - The Canon, the Cold War, and the Struggle for American Studies

"The Errant Art of Moby-Dick" retrieves for all of us the errant art of critical reading, which no mere program of cynical professionalism or fashionable 'new historicism' could ever successfully practice in any genuine sense. As such, this work is a major intervention in Melville studies, American literature studies, and the culture of criticism generally."--Daniel O'Hara, Temple University

About the author

William V. Spanos is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York, Binghamton. He is the founding editor of boundary 2 and the author of many books, including The End of Education and Heidegger and Criticism.

Summary

Reexamines Melville's monumental novel and turns the occasion into a meditation on the history and implications of canon formation. This book presents a view of the development of literary history in the United States, and a devastating critique of the genealogy of ideology in the American cultural establishment.

Product details

• Authors: Spanos, William V Spanos, William V. Spanos
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.06.1995
• EAN: 9780822315995
• ISBN: 978-0-8223-1599-5
• No. of pages: 392
• Dimensions: 164 mm x 228 mm x 28 mm
• Weight: 694 g
• Series: New Americanists; Post-Contemporary Intervention; New Americanists; Post-Contemporary Intervention
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Literature - Classics / Criticism, LITERARY CRITICISM / Books & Reading