Summary
Herman Melville was already considered to be a successful author when he wrote Moby-Dick in just under two years. Yet despite his earlier success, the novel was widely misunderstood by its 19th-century readers, who expected a more traditional adventure novel. Today Moby-Dick is considered to be an undisputed classic, and many believe it to be the epitome of the great American novel. With an unforgettable cast of characters, including the mad Captain Ahab, Melville skillfully documents the Pequod crew's tragic hunt for the great white whale. The full-length essays presented in Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Updated Edition provide expert commentary on the huge canvas of symbols themes, and subjects presented in this novel, as well as an introduction, a chronology, a bibliography, and an index, that will help students navigate confidently through Melville's masterpiece.
Specifications
Chronology. Bibliography. Index.
About the Author(s)
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University. Educated at Cornell and Yale universities, he is the author of 30 books, including Shelley's Mythmaking (1959), The Visionary Company (1961), Blake's Apocalypse (1963), Yeats (1970), A Map of Misreading (1975), Kabbalah and Criticism (1975), Agon: Toward a Theory of Revisionism (1982), The American Religion (1992), The Western Canon (1994), Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection (1996), and Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998), a 1998 National Book Award finalist. The Anxiety of Influence (1973) sets forth Professor Bloom's provocative theory of the literary relationships between the great writers and their predecessors. His most recent books include How to Read and Why (2000), Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds (2002), Hamlet: Poem Unlimited (2003), Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? (2004), and Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine (2005). In addition, he is the author of hundreds of articles, reviews, and editorial introductions. In 1999, Professor Bloom received the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Criticism. He has also received the International Prize of Catalonia, the Alfonso Reyes Prize of Mexico, and the Hans Christian Andersen Bicentennial Prize of Denmark.