Ungraspable Phantom
Essays on Moby-Dick
Published on 1. September 2006
Book
Hardback
392 pages
978-0-87338-860-3 (ISBN)
Description
The twenty-one essays collected in "Ungraspable Phantom" are from an international conference held in 2001 celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of "Moby-Dick". The essays reflect not only a range of problems and approaches, but also the cosmopolitan perspective of international scholarship. They offer new thoughts on familiar topics: the novel's problematic structure, its sources in and reinvention of the Bible, its Lacanian and post-Freudian psychology, and its rhetoric. They also present fresh information on new areas of interest: Melville's creative process, law and jurisprudence, Freemasonry and labor, race, Latin Americanism, and the Native American. Scholars, students, and readers of "Moby-Dick" will find this collection of essays fresh and insightful.
Reviews / Votes
"In presenting this volume of essays..., we are not suggesting that Moby-Dick, a piece of writing first published in the fall of 1851, is itself 'ungraspable,' that is, too diffuse to be interpretable. In fact, the novel... is quite graspable, although once read, it is susceptible... to numerous interpretations.... By invoking the notion of Melville's 'ungraspable phantom of life,' the editors of this volume want to suggest that the collection as a whole acknowledges the multiplicity in Melville's novel. If Moby-Dick is 'ungraspable,' it is only because it cannot be grasped through one approach only. And the fact that the novel lends itself to multiple approaches and numerous interpretations accounts for both its appeal to some and repulsion for others." - from the Preface"More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Kent, OH
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
illustrations, notes, biblio., index
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-87338-860-3 (9780873388603)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
John Bryant is professor of English at Hofstra University and served as editor of the Melville Society Extracts. His other books include Melville and Repose: The Rhetoric of Humor in the American Renaissance, A Companion to Melville Studies, and Melville's Evermoving Dawn: Centennial Essays. Mary K. Bercaw Edwards is associate professor of English at the University of Connecticut. Her previous publications include Melville's Sources (1987) and Herman Melville's Whaling Years (2004), which she co-edited with Thomas Farel Heffernan. Timothy Marr is an assistant professor of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism (Cambridge University Press, August 2006).