The panel discusses chapters 16-25, with a particular attention to characterisation beyond Ishmael and Queequeg–particularly that of Peleg, Bildad, Elijah, and Bulkington–and to the overarching Old Testament Biblical influences upon the narrative.

– Thoughtful Analysis of Essential Literature
The panel discusses chapters 16-25, with a particular attention to characterisation beyond Ishmael and Queequeg–particularly that of Peleg, Bildad, Elijah, and Bulkington–and to the overarching Old Testament Biblical influences upon the narrative.
The panel reads chapters 5-15, with a special focus on the description and narrative use of religious symbolism and devotional practice, contrasting the Christian Ishmael and the pagan Queequeg to illustrate Ishmael’s welcoming, fraternal worldview.
The panel reads the prologues and first four chapters of Moby Dick, provides an overview of the publication history of the text, and discusses the character and reliability of the jocular, circuitous narrator, who commands the reader to ‘Call me Ishmael.’
The panel concludes a two-part survey of Melville’s reading of the Civil War as viewed through his Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) by discussing poems on Stonewall Jackson, the Surrender at Appomattox, and post-war America.
In this first episode of a two-part examination of Melville’s poetic response to the Civil War, the panel reads two poems from his first poetry collection, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866): ‘The Conflict of Convictions’ and ‘Gettysburg’.
The panel analyses contradiction in Melville’s earliest and latest published poems: three selections from Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War–his first collection–and “Art” from Timoleon and Other Ventures, published only four months before his death.