Call Me Ishmael (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781614279075)

2015 Reprint of the 1947 edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. 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.

Author: Charles Olson
ISBN-10: 1614279071
ISBN-13: 9781614279075
Publisher: Martino Fine Books
Language: English
Published: 11/17/2015
Pages: 128
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.44lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.30d