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Tag: Herman Melville

Moby Dick: The Lee Shore, by Rockwell Kent

CR Episode 177: Moby Dick, Part III

29 May 2023 Critical Readings

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.

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Moby Dick: The Sermon, by Rockwell Kent

CR Episode 176: Moby Dick, Part II

22 May 2023 Critical Readings

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.

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Herman Melville FEATURED

CR Episode 175: Moby Dick, Part I

15 May 2023 Critical Readings

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.’

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Confederate Surrender at Appomattox FEATURED

CR Episode 147: Melville and the Civil War, Part II

24 October 2022 Critical Readings

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.

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The Battle of Gettysburg FEATURED

CR Episode 146: Melville and the Civil War, Part I

17 October 2022 Critical Readings

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’.

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Herman Melville FEATURED

CR Episode 71: Accepting Complexity in Melville’s Poetry

22 March 2021 Critical Readings

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.

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