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Call Me Ishmael
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Call Me Ishmael Paperback - 1997

by Charles Olson; Afterword by Merton M. Sealts

First published in 1947, this acknowledged classic of American literary criticism explores the influences--especially Shakespearean ones--on Herman Melville's writing of "Moby-Dick". Olson examines the influence of "King Lear" on Melville's work.


From the publisher

One of the most stimulating essays ever written on Moby Dick, and for that matter on any piece of literature, and the forces behind it."--San Francisco Chronicle

First published in 1947, this acknowledged classic of American literary criticism explores the influences--especially Shakespearean ones--on Melville's writing of Moby-Dick. One of the first Melvilleans to advance what has since become known as the "theory of the two Moby-Dicks," Olson argues that there were two versions of Moby-Dick, and that Melville's reading King Lear for the first time in between the first and second versions of the book had a profound impact on his conception of the saga: "the first book did not contain Ahab," writes Olson, and "it may not, except incidentally, have contained Moby-Dick." If literary critics and reviewers at the time responded with varying degrees of skepticism to the "theory of the two Moby-Dicks," it was the experimental style and organization of the book that generated the most controversy.

Details

  • Title Call Me Ishmael
  • Author Charles Olson; Afterword by Merton M. Sealts
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Pages 164
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD
  • Date 1997-11-28
  • Features Table of Contents
  • ISBN 9780801857317 / 0801857317
  • Weight 0.52 lbs (0.24 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.38 x 6.02 x 0.41 in (21.29 x 15.29 x 1.04 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 19th Century
    • Cultural Region: British
  • Library of Congress subjects Melville, Herman, Sea stories, American - History and criticism
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 97015748
  • Dewey Decimal Code 813.3

About the author

Charles Olson (1910-1970), an avant garde poet, literary critic, and literary theorist, is the author of The Maximus Poems, The Distances, The Human Universe and Other Essays, and In Cold Hell, in Thicket.

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