SUBVERSIVE GENEALOGYIn this major reconsideration of Herman Melville’s life and work, Michael Paul Rogin shows that Melville’s novels are connected both to the important issues of his time and to the exploits of his patrician and politically prominent family—which, three generations after its Revolutionary War heroes, produced an alcoholic, a bankrupt, and a suicide. Rogin argues that a history of Melville’s fiction, and of the society represented in it, is also a history of the writer’s family. He describes how that family first engaged Melville in and then isolated him from American political and social life. Melville’s brother and father-in-law are shown to link Moby-Dick to the crisis over expansion and slavery. White-Jacket and Billy Budd, which concern shipboard conflicts between masters and seamen, are related to an execution at sea in which Melville’s cousin played a decisive part. The figure of Melville’s father haunts The Confidence Man, whose subject is the triumph of the marketplace and the absence of authority. A provocative study of one of our supreme literary artists. |
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—Herman Melville, “A Thought on Book-Binding”1 Herman Melville reviewed The Red Rover, James Fenimore Cooper's tale of the sea, as he was beginning Moby-Dick. Melville had read this pirate romance in his youth, and the book's plot, ...
—Herman Melville, “A Thought on Book-Binding”1 Herman Melville reviewed The Red Rover, James Fenimore Cooper's tale of the sea, as he was beginning Moby-Dick. Melville had read this pirate romance in his youth, and the book's plot, ...
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Cooper invokes the Puritans to show his support for legitimate authority. He appeals over the heads of the merchant fathers of the ... In Cooper's discussion, however, noble ancestors do not sustain their businessmen descendants.
Cooper invokes the Puritans to show his support for legitimate authority. He appeals over the heads of the merchant fathers of the ... In Cooper's discussion, however, noble ancestors do not sustain their businessmen descendants.
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Cooper's tale introduces the Melville family problem. The Rover's masquerades disorient Wilder, and draw him into the outlaw's power. The pirate takes on identities at will; no lawyer or captain is safe from suspicion once the Rover has ...
Cooper's tale introduces the Melville family problem. The Rover's masquerades disorient Wilder, and draw him into the outlaw's power. The pirate takes on identities at will; no lawyer or captain is safe from suspicion once the Rover has ...
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6 Neither Melville's voyage on the Acushnet nor his brother's politics were laid at Cooper's door. No one blamed The Red Rover for the Melville brothers' subversion of authority. It was, however, assigned responsibility for mutiny on ...
6 Neither Melville's voyage on the Acushnet nor his brother's politics were laid at Cooper's door. No one blamed The Red Rover for the Melville brothers' subversion of authority. It was, however, assigned responsibility for mutiny on ...
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Cooper had, as newspaper editors charged, based his protagonist, Edward Effingham, on himself. As he denied he was Effingham, he defended the rebellious midshipman who followed The Red Rover and whose life imitated Cooper's.
Cooper had, as newspaper editors charged, based his protagonist, Edward Effingham, on himself. As he denied he was Effingham, he defended the rebellious midshipman who followed The Red Rover and whose life imitated Cooper's.
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Contenido
SOCIETY | |
Herman Melvilles Eighteenth Brumaire | |
THE STATE | |
The Somers Mutiny and Billy Budd Melville in | |
Notes | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Subversive Genealogy: The Politics and Art of Herman Melville Michael Rogin Vista previa limitada - 1985 |
Subversive Genealogy: The Politics and Art of Herman Melville Michael Rogin Vista previa limitada - 1985 |
Subversive Genealogy: The Politics and Art of Herman Melville Michael Paul Rogin Vista de fragmentos - 1983 |
Términos y frases comunes
Ahab Ahab’s Albany Allan Melvill American antebellum authority Bartleby Bartleby’s Battle-Pieces Benito Cereno Billy Budd Billy’s Boston brother buttons captain Civil confidence Confidence-Man conflict Cooper’s costume crew custom house death democratic dome Duyckinck escape father flogging freedom Gansevoort Melville Glendinning Guert Gansevoort Hawthorne heart Henry Herman Melville hero human Ibid imagined Indian Isabel Ishmael Israel Potter Jackson lawyer Lemuel Shaw Lincoln Mackenzie Mackenzie’s man’s Manifest Destiny Maria Melvill Marx masquerade Melvill to Peter Melville wrote Melville’s Melville’s fiction Moby Moby-Dick mother Mount Greylock mutiny narrator nature Neversink novel O’Sullivan Omoo Parker paternal Pequod Peter Gansevoort Philip Spencer Pierre Pierre’s poem Red Rover Redburn replaced Revolution revolutionary romance sailors San Dominick savage Shaw’s ship slave slavery SM/H social society Somers Spencer Stanwix stone story symbols Tartarus Theodore Parker Thomas Melvill Thoreau Tocqueville Vere Vere’s Webster whale whip White-Jacket York Young America