Melville and Aesthetics

GEOFFREY SANBORN is an Associate Professor of Literature at Bard College, USA.   SAMUEL OTTER is a Professor of English and Department Chair of the University of California at Berkeley, USA.

• Introduction: Aesthetics and Melville; S.Otter & G.Sanborn PART I: THE MATTER OF STYLE Blubber: Melville's Bad Writing; A.Calder Melville's Ornamentation: On Irrelevant Beauty; T.Davis Melvillean Provocation and the Critical Art of Devotion; A.Dubois PART II: CASE STUDIES Strange Sensations: Sex and Aesthetics in 'The Counterpane'; C.Looby Dead Bones and Honest Wonders: The Aesthetics of Natural Science in Moby-Dick; J.J.Baker Pulled by the Line: Speed and Photography in Moby-Dick; L.Rigal 'Pierre's Nominal Conversions'; E.Duquette 'The Silhouette of a Content': 'Bartleby' and American Literary Specificity; N.Ruttenburg The Revolutionary Aesthetics of Israel Potter; R.S.Levine Theatricality, Strangeness, and the Aesthetics of Plurality in The Confidence-Man; J.Greiman Battle Music: Melville and the Forms of War; P.Coviello Melville's Song of Songs: Clarel as Aesthetic Pilgrimage; I.Pardes

"This collection of essays makes an essential contribution to American literary scholarship by expanding the hermeneutical possibilities of theory and practice as well as enriching our understanding of Melville's literary works." - Review 19 "Melville and Aesthetics provides a snapshot of Melville criticism as it is currently practiced by some of the field's most accomplished interpreters. The volume treats a wide range of texts by Melville, including the poetry, and essay after essay wrestles with Melville's astonishing stylistic achievements with intelligence and verve.This is a volume that will be welcomed by students and specialists alike." - Jonathan Elmer, Professor of English and American Studies, Indiana University and author of On Lingering and Being Last: Race and Sovereignty in the New World "Melville and Aesthetics gives us a set of elegant and interpretively rich essays that add up to a powerful argument about the essential place of aesthetics in Melville's career. The 'extravagant qualities of Melville's lines,' to use Otter and Sanborn's phrase, are made visible and analytically vital as never before." - Cindy Weinstein, Professor of English, California Institute of Technology