This volume discusses Herman Melville, one of America's preeminent writers. Essays include a brief biography, a discussion of the critical reception of his work, his views on faith and religion, and his responses to the issues of his day.
Front Cover.
Half Title Page.
Title Page.
Copyright Page.
Contents.
About This Volume.
Career, Life, and Influence.
1: On Herman Melville.
2: Biography of Herman Melville.
Critical Contexts.
3: Melville's America: The United States in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.
4: The Critical Response to Herman Melville.
5: Melville and the Transcendentalists.
6: Transgressing the Border: The Complexities of Colonial Critique in Typee.
Critical Readings.
7: At the Axis of Reality: Melville's Aesthetic.
8: Melville and the Gothic Romance.
9: The Many Masks of Melville's God.
10: Melville's Democratic America.
11: Typee and the Myth of Paradise.
12: Mardi: Melville's Search for Narrative.
13: Moby-Dick and Metaphysics.
14: Pierre and the Ambiguities of Antebellum America.
15: Melville's Anatomy of American Belief: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade.
16: Metrical Melville: The Career of an Obscure Poet.
