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The errant art of Moby-Dick : the canon, the Cold War, and the struggle for American studies / William V. Spanos.
Author
Spanos, William V.
[Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press, 1995.
Description
xiv, 374 pages ; 23 cm.
Availability
Available Online
Ebook Central Perpetual, DDA and Subscription Titles
JSTOR DDA
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Call Number
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Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks
PS2384.M62 S59 1995
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Details
Subject(s)
Politics and literature
—
United States
—
History
—
20th century
[Browse]
Literature and society
—
United States
—
History
—
20th century
[Browse]
Sea stories, American
—
History and criticism
—
Theory, etc
[Browse]
American literature
—
History and criticism
—
Theory, etc
[Browse]
Criticism
—
United States
—
History
—
20th century
[Browse]
Canon (Literature)
[Browse]
Cold War
[Browse]
Melville, Herman 1819-1891
—
Moby Dick
[Browse]
Melville, Herman 1819-1891
—
Influence
[Browse]
Series
New Americanists
[More in this series]
Summary note
"In The Errant Art of Moby-Dick, one of America's most distinguished critics reexamines Melville's monumental novel and turns the occasion into a meditation on the history and implications of canon formation. In Moby-Dick--a work virtually ignored and discredited at the time of its publication--William V. Spanos uncovers a text remarkably suited as a foundation for a "New Americanist" critique of the ideology based on Puritan origins that was codified in the canon established by "Old Americanist" critics from F. O. Matthiessen to Lionel Trilling. But Spanos also shows, with the novel still as his focus, the limitations of this "New Americanist" discourse and its failure to escape the totalizing imperial perspective it finds in its predecessor.Combining Heideggerian ontology with a sociopolitical perspective derived primarily from Foucault, the reading of Moby-Dick that forms the center of this book demonstrates that the traditional identification of Melville's novel as a "romance" renders it complicitous in the discourse of the Cold War. At the same time, Spanos shows how New Americanist criticism overlooks the degree to which Moby-Dick anticipates not only America's self-representation as the savior of the world against communism, but also the emergent postmodern and anti-imperial discourse deployed against such an image. Spanos's critique reveals the extraordinary relevance of Melville's novel as a post-Cold War text, foreshadowing not only the self-destructive end of the historical formation of the American cultural identity in the genocidal assault on Vietnam, but also the reactionary labeling of the current era as "the end of history.""--Back cover.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (p. [353]-363) and index.
Contents
Moby-Dick and the American Canon
Metaphysics and spatial form: Melville's critique of speculative philosophy and fiction
The errant art of Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick and the contemporary American occasion.
Show 1 more Contents items
ISBN
082231584X ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
9780822315841 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
0822315998 ((paper ; : alk. paper))
9780822315995 ((paper ; : alk. paper))
LCCN
94044315
OCLC
31659059
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Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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The errant art of Moby-Dick : the canon, the Cold War, and the struggle for American studies / William V. Spanos.
id
99125796549806421
The errant art of Moby-Dick : the canon, the Cold War, and the struggle for American studies / William V. Spanos.
id
99125410282406421