American Hieroglyphics

John T. Irwin is the Decker Professor in the Humanities emeritus at Johns Hopkins University. His books include F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Fiction: “An Almost Theatrical Innocence”; Hart Crane’s Poetry: “Appollinaire lived in Paris, I live in Cleveland, Ohio”; The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story; and Unless the Threat of Death Is Behind Them: Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir.

• PrefacePart I: Emerson, Thoreau, and WhitmanChapter 1. Champollion and the Historical Background; Emerson's Hieroglyphical EmblemsChapter 2. Thoreau: The Single, Basic Form — Patenting a LeafChapter 3. Whitman: Hieroglyphic Bibles and Phallic SongsPart II: PoeChapter 4. The Hieroglyphics and the Quest for Origins: The Myth of Hieroglyphic DoublingChapter 5. Ends and Origins: The Voyage to the Polar Abyss and the Journey to the Source of the Nile; The Survival of the ManuscriptChapter 6. Certainty and Credibility — Self-Evidence and Self-Reference; Nietzsche and Tragedy — Whitman and Opera; The Open RoadChapter 7. Writing Self / Written Self; The Dark Double; The Overwhelming of the Vessel Chapter 8. Cannibalism and Sacrifice; Metaphors of the Body — Transfiguration, Transubstantiation, Resurrection, and AscensionChapter 9. Narcissus and the Illusion of DepthChapter 10. Self-Recognition; Deciphering a Mnemic Inscription; Historical Amnesia and Personal AnamnesisChapter 11. Repetition; Symbolic Death and Rebirth; The Infinite and Indefinite; The Mechanism of ForeshadowingChapter 12. The Unfinished Narrative; The Cavern Inscription on Tsalal; Survival in an ImageChapter 13. The White Shadow; Imaging the Indefinite; Reading the Spirit from the Letter; The Finality of Revenge; The Alogical Status of the SelfChapter 14. The Return to Oneness; Breaking the Crypt; The Limits of Interpretation; The Ultimate CertaintyPart III: Hawthorne and MelvilleChapter 15. Hawthorne: The Ambiguity of the Hieroglyphics; The Unstable Self and Its Roles; Mirror Image and Phonetic Veil; The Feminine Role of the Artist; Veil and Phallus; The Book as Partial ObjectChapter 16. Melville: The Indeterminate Ground; A Conjunction of Fountain and Vortex; The Myth of Isis and Osiris; Master Oppositions; The Doubleness of the Self and the Illusion of Consistent Character; Dionysus and Apollo; Mask and Phallus; The Chain of Partial ObjectsEpilogueNotesIndex

"This is major scholarship, both as it contributes to American history of ideas and as it offers a brilliant new interpretation of major nineteenth-century American writers."--J. Hillis Miller