ENGLISH

In Pursuit of Moby-Dick : Of Whales and Their Gods

By Joseph S. Catalano

Book information

Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Year
2023
ISBN
9783031403569, 9783031403576
DOI
10.1007/978-3-031-40357-6
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
2 MB (1703047 bytes)
Edition
1
Pages
xiii; 129\135
Topic
Literature
Orientation
yes
Scanned
no
Time added
2023-11-16 23:04:04
Cultural and Media Studies; Nineteenth-Century LitLiterature

Description

This study presents Moby-Dick as a novel with three distinct but interconnecting stories: Ishmael’s, which he shares ten years after it has taken place; Ahab’s, which is Ishmael's account of the memorable captain of a whaling ship; and a third which centres on whales and whaling, which has not received significant critical attention. While each of these perspectives compete for prominence in the narrative, Ahab and Ishmael's stories have often distracted from the vital significance of the whaling narrative as what outlasts Ahab’s obsessive mission. Catalano rights this wrong by coming to a strikingly original and thought-provoking conclusion which becomes the heart of the book's argument: “the unity of Melville’s book comes, first, from the way the numerous literary, philosophical, and religious reflections are rooted in those magnificent beings, whales and in the men and ships that pursue them, and, second, in the way these reflections illuminate our own lives.”

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