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Herman Melville
Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and ''Billy Budd, Billy Budd, Sailor'', a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death Melville was not well known to the public, but 1919, the centennial of his birth, was the starting point of a #Melville revival and Melville studies, Melville revival. ''Moby-Dick'' would eventually be considered one of the great American novels. Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on the merchant ship ''St. Lawrence'' and then, in 1841, on the whaler ''Acushnet'', but he jumped ship in the Marquesas I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White-Jacket
''White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War'' is the fifth book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1850. The book is based on the author's fourteen months' service in the United States Navy, aboard the frigate USS ''Neversink'' (actually ). Although early biographers of Melville assumed the account was reliably autobiographical, scholars have shown that much in the book was taken and transformed from popular sea books. Overview Based on Melville's experiences as a common seaman aboard the frigate from 1843 to 1844, stories that other sailors told him, and earlier sea books, the novel is severely critical of virtually every aspect of American naval life and thus qualifies as Melville's most politically strident work. At the time, though, the one thing that journalists and politicians focused on in the novel was its graphic descriptions of flogging and the horrors caused by its arbitrary use; in fact, because Harper & Bros. made sure the book got i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy. With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Renaissance (literature)
The American Renaissance period in American literature ran from about 1830 to around the Civil War.Boswell, Jeanetta. ''The American Renaissance and the Critics.'' Wakefield: Longwood Academic. . A central term in American studies, the American Renaissance was for a while considered synonymous with American Romanticism and was closely associated with Transcendentalism. Overview Scholar F. O. Matthiessen originated the phrase "American Renaissance" in his 1941 book ''American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman''. The thematic center of the American Renaissance was what Matthiessen called the "devotion" of all five of his writers to "the possibilities of democracy". He presented the American Renaissance texts as "literature for our democracy” and challenged the nation to repossess them. Often considered a movement centered in New England, the American Renaissance was inspired in part by a new focus on humanism as a way to move from Calvinism. Litera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Redburn
''Redburn: His First Voyage'' is the fourth book by the American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1849. The book is semi-autobiographical and recounts the adventures of a refined youth among coarse and brutal sailors and the seedier areas of Liverpool. Melville wrote ''Redburn'' in less than ten weeks. While one scholar describes it as "arguably his funniest work", scholar F. O. Matthiessen calls it "the most moving of its author's books before ''Moby-Dick''". Plot Unable to find employment at home, young Wellingborough Redburn signs on the ''Highlander'', a merchantman out of New York City bound for Liverpool, England. Representing himself as the "son of a gentleman" and expecting to be treated as such, he discovers that he is just a green hand, a "boy", the lowest rank on the ship, assigned all the duties no other sailor wants, like cleaning out the "pigpen", a longboat that serves as a shipboard sty. The first mate promptly nicknames him "Buttons" for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mardi
''Mardi: and a Voyage Thither'' is the third book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1849. Beginning as a travelogue in the vein of the author's two previous efforts, the adventure story gives way to a romance story, which in its turn gives way to a philosophical quest. Overview ''Mardi'' is Melville's first purely fictional work. Although Melville and his publishers presented his first two books, '' Typee'' and '' Omoo'', as nonfiction, enough critics were able to identify plagiarism in them (especially ''Typee'') from other works, both fiction and nonfiction, that their veracity and Melville's integrity were always points of contention. As a preface to ''Mardi'', Melville wrote somewhat ironically that his first two books were nonfiction but disbelieved; by the same pattern he hoped the fiction book would be accepted as fact. Much as did ''Typee'' and ''Omoo'', ''Mardi'' details the travels of an American sailor who abandons a whaling vessel to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lemuel Shaw
Lemuel Shaw (January 9, 1781 – March 30, 1861) was an American jurist who served as chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1830–1860). Prior to his appointment he also served for several years in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and as a state senator. In 1847, Shaw became the father-in-law of author Herman Melville. He ruled on prominent cases involving slavery, segregation, and religion. Early life and education Shaw was born in West Barnstable, Massachusetts, the second son of the Rev. Oakes Shaw and his second wife Susanna, who was a daughter of John H. Hayward of Braintree. The Shaws were descendants of Abraham Shaw (January 2, 1590 – November 2, 1638), who left Halifax, England in 1636 and settled in Dedham. Oakes Shaw, a Congregationalist minister, was pastor of the West Church in Barnstable for forty-seven years. Lemuel was named for his uncle, Dr. Hayward of Boston, father of George Hayward, the surgeon. Educated at home by his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Omoo
''Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas'' is the second book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1847, and a sequel to his first South Seas narrative '' Typee'', also based on the author's experiences in the South Pacific. After leaving the island of Nuku Hiva, the main character ships aboard a whaling vessel that makes its way to Tahiti, after which there is a mutiny and a third of the crew are imprisoned on Tahiti. In 1949, the narrative was adapted into the exploitation film '' Omoo-Omoo, the Shark God''. Background The basis for the book are the author's experiences in the South Seas. According to scholars Harrison Hayford and Walter Blair, in August and September 1842, the ''Lucy Ann'', an Australian whaleship, took Melville from the Marquesas Islands to Tahiti. There the crew revolted. After being imprisoned in the native jail, he strolled around the islands for some days, before embarking on another whaler for a voyage of six mont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marquesas Islands
The Marquesas Islands ( ; or ' or ' ; Marquesan language, Marquesan: ' (North Marquesan language, North Marquesan) and ' (South Marquesan language, South Marquesan), both meaning "the land of men") are a group of volcano, volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the southern Pacific Ocean. Their highest point is the peak of Mont Oave, Mount Oave () on Ua Pou island, at 1,230 m (4,035 ft) above sea level. Archaeological research suggests the islands were colonized in the 10th century AD by voyagers from West Polynesia. Over the centuries that followed, the islands have maintained a "remarkably uniform culture, biology and language". The Marquesas were named after the 16th-century Spanish Viceroy of Peru, the García Hurtado de Mendoza, 5th Marquis of Cañete, Marquis of Cañete (), by navigator , who visited them in 1595. The Marquesas Islands constitute one of the administrative divisions of French Polynesia, five administrative di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great American Novel
The "Great American Novel" (sometimes abbreviated as GAN) is the term for a Western Canon, canonical novel that generally embodies and examines the essence and Culture of the United States, character of the United States. The term was coined by John William De Forest in an 1868 essay and later shortened to GAN. De Forest noted that the Great American Novel had most likely not been written yet. Practically, the term refers to a small number of books that have historically been the nexus of discussion, including ''Moby-Dick'' (1851), ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884), ''The Great Gatsby'' (1925), and ''Gone with the Wind (novel), Gone with the Wind'' (1936). Exactly what novel or novels warrant the title is without consensus and an assortment have been contended as the idea has evolved and continued into the modern age, with fluctuations in popular and critical regard. William Carlos Williams, Clyde Brion Davis and Philip Roth have all written novels about the Great Amer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melville Revival And Melville Studies
Melville may refer to: Places Antarctica * Cape Melville (South Shetland Islands) * Melville Peak, King George Island * Melville Glacier, Graham Land * Melville Highlands, Laurie Island * Melville Point, Marie Byrd Land Australia *Cape Melville, Queensland * City of Melville, Western Australia, the local government authority * Electoral district of Melville, Western Australia * Melville Bay, Northern Territory *Melville Island, Northern Territory *Melville, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth Canada *Melville, Saskatchewan, a city *Melville (electoral district), Saskatchewan, a federal electoral district * Melville (provincial electoral district), Saskatchewan *Lake Melville, Newfoundland and Labrador *Melville Peninsula, Nunavut * Melville Sound, Nunavut *Melville Island (Northwest Territories and Nunavut) * Melville Island (Nova Scotia), in Halifax Harbour * Melville Cove, Halifax, in Halifax Harbour * Melville, Inverness County, Nova Scotia * Melville, Pictou County, Nova ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts. Definition The Italian term is a feminine of ''novello'', which means ''new'', similarly to the English word ''news''. Merriam-Webster defines a novella as "a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel". There is disagreement regarding the number of pages or words necessary for a story to be considered a novella, a short story or a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association defines a novella's word count to be between 17,500 and 40,000 words; at 250 words per page, this equates to 70 to 160 pages. See below for definitions used by other organisations. History The novella as a literary genre began developing in the Italian literature of the early Renaissance, princip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Budd
''Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)'', also known as ''Billy Budd, Foretopman'', is a novella by American writer Herman Melville, left unfinished at his death in 1891. Acclaimed by critics as a masterpiece when a hastily transcribed version was finally published in 1924, it quickly took its place as a classic second only to ''Moby-Dick'' among Melville's works. Billy Budd is a "handsome sailor" who strikes and inadvertently kills his false accuser, Master-at-arms John Claggart. The ship's Captain, Edward Vere, recognizes Billy's lack of intent, but claims that the law of mutiny requires him to sentence Billy to be hanged. Melville began work on the novella in November 1886, revising and expanding it from time to time, but he left the manuscript in disarray. Melville's widow Elizabeth began to edit the manuscript for publication, but was not able to discern her husband's intentions at key points, even as to the book's title. Raymond M. Weaver, Melville's first biographer, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
