Viva Modern Critical Interpretations Moby-dick

Herman Melville was already considered to be a successful author when he wrote his masterpiece Moby-Dick in just under two years. Yet despite his earlier successes, the novel sold only 3,000 copies and was widely misunderstood by its nineteenth-century readers, who expected a more traditional sea-adventure novel. Melville never regained the popularity he’d experienced with his earlier books. Today, Moby-Dick is considered to be an undisputed classic, and many including critics in this volume, believe it to be the epitome of the great American novel. With an unforgettable cast of characters, including the mad, obsessive Captain Ahab, Melville documents the Pequod crew’s tragic hunt for the great white whale. The rich narrative unfolds in a digressive structure, encompassing a huge canvas of symbols, themes, and subjects, including history, religion, politics, race, philosophy, and science. As the critics in this volume attest, Melville weaves Biblical, mythological, and Shakespearean references into his story to create a human tragedy of vengeance and obsession. Moby-Dick is not only a very big book; it is also a peculiarly full and rich one, and from the very opening it conveys a sense of abundance, of high creative power, that exhilarates and enlarges the imagination. — Alfred Kazin There are no neat summary possible for a book so sprawling alive with ideas and imagery, and so fiercely aflame with the passion of its author. — Patrick McGrath VIVA MODERN CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS presents the best current criticism on the most widely read and studied poems, novels and dramas of the Western world, from Oedipus Rex and the Iliad to such modern and contemporary works as William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and Don DeLillo’s White Noise. Each volume opens with an introductory essay and editor’s note by Harold Bloom and includes a bibliography, a chronology of the author’s life and works, and notes on the contributors. Taken together, VIVA MODERN CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS provides a comprehensive critical guide to the most vital and influential works of the Western literary tradition.