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Herman Melville (book)
''Herman Melville'' is a biography of the American author Herman Melville by Lewis Mumford, first published in 1929. Mumford, who felt a close affinity with Melville, gives both an account of the author's life and an interpretation of his works in the book, devoting particular attention to ''Moby-Dick'' and the later works published thereafter. The book played a role in the Melville revival of the 1920s, helping to affirm the author's reputation and to indicate connections between his work and later literature. The book was later republished under the title ''Herman Melville: A Study of His Life and Vision''. Conception and publication Lewis Mumford viewed Herman Melville as a kindred spirit with whom he shared certain concerns and problems, as well as certain life experiences. Mumford was intrigued by Melville's personality, his personal development and his vision of life, and saw Melville as an unorthodox moral philosopher. He had previously discussed Melville in his book ''The G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer. Mumford made signal contributions to social philosophy, American literary and cultural history and the history of technology. He was influenced by the work of Scottish theorist Sir Patrick Geddes and worked closely with his associate the British sociologist Victor Branford. Mumford was also a contemporary and friend of Frank Lloyd Wright, Clarence Stein, Frederic Osborn, Edmund N. Bacon, and Vannevar Bush. Life Mumford was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1912. He studied at the City College of New York and The New School for Social Research, but became ill with tuberculosis and never finished his degree. In 1918 he joined the navy to serve in World War I and was assigned as a rad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horace Liveright
Horace Brisbin Liveright (pronounced "LIVE-right," anglicized by Horace's father from the German ''Liebrecht;'' 10 December 1884 – 24 September 1933) was an American publisher and stage producer. With Albert Boni, he founded the Modern Library and Boni & Liveright publishers. He published the books of numerous influential American and British authors. Turning to theatre, he produced the successful 1927 Broadway play ''Dracula'', with Béla Lugosi and Edward Van Sloan in the roles they would make famous in the 1931 film by the same name. Life and career Liveright was born into a Jewish family in 1884, in Osceola Mills, Pennsylvania. He initially followed the career of a bond salesman. He married Lucille Elsas, the daughter of Herman Elsas the owner of a paper company merged into International Paper of which he was subsequently an officer and director. The marriage took place in April 1911, and Liveright used his father-in-law's financial backing to embark on a publishing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities
''Pierre; or, The Ambiguities'' is the seventh book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in New York in 1852. The novel, which uses many conventions of Gothic fiction, develops the psychological, sexual, and family tensions between Pierre Glendinning; his widowed mother; Glendinning Stanley, his cousin; Lucy Tartan, his fiancée; and Isabel Banford, who is revealed to be his half-sister. According to scholar Henry A. Murray, in writing ''Pierre'' Melville "purposed to write his spiritual autobiography in the form of a novel" rather than to experiment and incidentally work some personal experience into the novel.Murray, Henry A. (1949). "Introduction" and "Explanatory Notes". ''Herman Melville, 'Pierre; or, the Ambiguities''. Edited by Henry A. Murray. New York: Hendricks House, Inc. p. xxiv. Published after the lukewarm reaction to ''Moby-Dick'', ''Pierre'' was a critical and financial disaster. Reviewers universally condemned its morals and its style. More recent cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Literature (journal)
''American Literature'' is a literary journal published by Duke University Press. It is sponsored by the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association. The current editors are Priscilla Wald and Matthew A. Taylor. The first volume of this journal was published in March 1929. Coverage includes the contributions and works of American authors. Temporal coverage is from the colonial period until present day. Publishing formats also include book review, and relevant announcements (conferences, grants, and publishing opportunities). A citations index is also part of this journal. The index is for future issues and reprints, collections, anthologies, and professional books. Abstracting and indexing This journal is Indexed/abstracted in the following databases: *Quarterly - Arts & Humanities Citation Index and Current Contents / Arts & Humanities Wellesley College. Branch Location - Clapp Library. *Full title of this journal listed as "''American literature; a jour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New England Quarterly
''The New England Quarterly'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal consisting of articles on New England's cultural, literary, political, and social history. The journal contains essays, interpretations of traditional texts, essay reviews and book reviews. ''The New England Quarterly'' was established in 1928 and is published by MIT Press for The New England Quarterly Inc., a nonprofit sponsored by the University of Massachusetts Boston and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 au ..., and supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. MIT Press began publishing the journal in 2007. References External links * Journal pageon MIT Press website History of the United States journals Quarterly journals MIT Press academic journals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists in Herman Melville's ''Moby-Dick'' (1851). He is the monomaniacal captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod''. On a previous voyage, the white whale Moby Dick bit off Ahab's leg, and he now wears a prosthetic leg made out of whalebone. The whaling voyage of the ''Pequod'' ends up as a hunt for revenge on the whale, as Ahab forces the crew members to support his fanatical mission. When Moby Dick is finally sighted, Ahab's hatred robs him of all caution, and the whale drags him to his death beneath the sea and sinks the ''Pequod''. Melville biographer Andrew Delbanco calls Ahab "a brilliant personification of the very essence of fanaticism". Scholar F. O. Matthiessen calls attention to the fact that Ahab is called an "ungodly god-like man". Ahab's "tragedy is that of an unregenerate will" whose "burning mind is barred out from the exuberance of love" and argues that he "remains damned". Writer D. H. Lawrence felt lit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero cult, Greek hero Odysseus, king of Homer's Ithaca, Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war, which lasted ten years, his journey lasted for ten additional years, during which time he encountered many perils and all his crew mates were killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a Suitors of Penelope, group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope's hand in marriage. The ''Odyssey'' was originally composed in Homeric Greek in around the 8th or 7th century BCE and, by the mid-6th century BCE, had become part of the Greek literary canon. In Classic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval worldview as it existed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: ''Inferno'', ''Purgatorio'', and '' Paradiso''. The narrative takes as its literal subject the state of the soul after death and presents an image of divine justice meted out as due punishment or reward, and describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Allegorically, the poem represents the soul's journey towards God, beginning with the recognition and rejection of sin (''Inferno''), followed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Weaver
Raymond Melbourne Weaver (1888 – April 4, 1948) was a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University in 1916–1948, and a literary scholar best known for publishing ''Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic'', the first full biography of American author Herman Melville (1819–1891) in 1921 and editing Melville's works. Weaver's scholarly credentials, training, and persuasiveness were important in launching the "Melville Revival" of the 1920s that brought Melville from obscurity to wide recognition. Weaver was an influential teacher. He published a novel, wrote introductions for editions of American fiction, book reviews, and literary essays, but never published another scholarly book after his book on Melville. Discovery of Melville Weaver was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1888. In 1909 when Weaver was an undergraduate, he came across Melville's first book, ''Typee'', but "stopped at the beginning," as he later wrote, and did not return to Melville for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White-Jacket
''White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War'' is the fifth book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1850. The book is based on the author's fourteen months' service in the United States Navy, aboard the frigate USS ''Neversink'' (actually ). Overview Based on Melville's experiences as a common seaman aboard the frigate from 1843 to 1844 and stories that other sailors told him, the novel is severely critical of virtually every aspect of American naval life and thus qualifies as Melville's most politically strident work. At the time, though, the one thing that journalists and politicians focused on in the novel was its graphic descriptions of flogging and the horrors caused by its arbitrary use; in fact, because Harper & Bros. made sure the book got into the hands of every member of Congress, ''White-Jacket'' was instrumental in abolishing flogging in the U.S. Navy forever. Melville scholars also acknowledge the huge number of parallels between ''White ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Redburn
''Redburn: His First Voyage'' is the fourth book by the American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1849. The book is semi-autobiographical and recounts the adventures of a refined youth among coarse and brutal sailors and the seedier areas of Liverpool. Melville wrote ''Redburn'' in less than ten weeks. While one scholar describes it as "arguably his funniest work", scholar F. O. Matthiessen calls it "the most moving of its author's books before ''Moby-Dick''". Plot Unable to find employment at home, young Wellingborough Redburn signs on the ''Highlander'', a merchantman out of New York City bound for Liverpool, England. Representing himself as the "son of a gentleman" and expecting to be treated as such, he discovers that he is just a green hand, a "boy", the lowest rank on the ship, assigned all the duties no other sailor wants, like cleaning out the "pig-pen", a longboat that serves as a shipboard sty. The first mate promptly nicknames him "Buttons" for the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Omoo
''Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas'' is the second book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1847, and a sequel to his first South Sea narrative ''Typee'', also based on the author's experiences in the South Pacific. After leaving the island of Nuku Hiva, the main character ships aboard a whaling vessel that makes its way to Tahiti, after which there is a mutiny and a third of the crew are imprisoned on Tahiti. In 1949, the novel was adapted into the exploitation film ''Omoo-Omoo, the Shark God''. Background In the Preface to ''Omoo'', Melville claimed the book was autobiographical, written "from simple recollection" of some of his experiences in the Pacific in the 1840s and strengthened by his retelling the story many times before family and friends. But scholar Charles Roberts Anderson, working in the late 1930s, discovered that Melville had not simply relied on his memory and went on to reveal a wealth of other sources he drew on in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
