Hunting Captain Ahab: Psychological Warfare and the Melville Revival - Hardcover

Spark, Clare L

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0873386744 ISBN 13: 9780873386746

Publisher: The Kent State University Press, 2001

Synopsis

In this provocative and vigorously argued interdisciplinary study of the development of institutional censorship, Clare Spark explores the complexities of 20th-century American cultural politics through the protagonists of the Melville Revival. She investigates closely the history of the Revival and its key critics, who manipulated Melville’s life and writings in the service of their own particular social and political agendas. Although often boldly conjectural and speculative, Spark’s assertions are based on her meticulous and thorough exploration of either newly opened or previously unexplored archival materials of leading Melville scholars. In addressing the distinction between what she calls the radical and conservative Enlightenment, Spark makes her way through Melville’s often confusing and contradictory texts and examines the disputes within Melville scholarship, which often center on the mesmerizing figure of Ahab as either a democratic hero or a totalitarian dictator, corresponding to the rival epistemologies of modern society.

About this title

From Library Journal:

Based on Spark's 1993 dissertation, The Melville Revival, 1919-1953 (UCLA), this complex work threads together two areas of study. Spark incorporates a significant amount of research to establish both the environment Melville wrote in and the path taken in the 20th century by Melville studies, which were much affected by the changing political atmosphere. Unlike most Melville criticism, this work integrates political, economic, and social history with standard literary criticism. While Spark provides a close reading of the later works (Moby-Dick, Pierre, and Clarel) and traces similar themes through them, her main focus is 20th-century criticism. The strength of the work is her ability to provide an appealing intellectual history of the early to mid-1900s as she follows the development of Melville studies through the political flux of this century. For academic libraries. Paolina Taglienti, Long Island Univ. Lib., Brooklyn, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0873386744
• ISBN 13: 9780873386746
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 744