Melville's intervisionary network : Balzac, Hawthorne, and realism in the American renaissance / John Haydock.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Haydock, John, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Realism in literature.

American literature--19th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

Melville, Herman, 1819-1891--Criticism and interpretation.

Melville, Herman.

Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850--Influence.

Balzac, Honoré de.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 333 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2016.

Summary:

The romances of Herman Melville, author of <i>Moby-Dick</i> and <i>Billy Budd</i>, <i>Sailor</i>, are usually examined from some setting almost exclusively American. European or other planetary contexts are subordinated to local considerations. But while this isolated approach plays well in an arena constructed on American exclusiveness, it does not express the reality of the literary processes swirling around Melville in the middle of the nineteenth century. A series of expanding literary and technological networks was active that made his writing part of a global complex. Honoré de Balzac, popular French writer and creator of realism in the novel, was also in the web of these same networks, both preceding and at the height of Melville's creativity. Because they engaged in similar intentions, there developed an almost inevitable attraction that brought their works together. Until recently, however, Balzac has not been recognized as a significant influence on Melville during his most creative period. Over the last decade, scholars began to explore literary networks by new methodologies, and the criticism developed out of these strategies pertains usually to modernist, postcolonial, contemporary situations. Remarkably, however, the intertextuality of Melville with Balzac is quite exactly a casebook study in transcultural comparativism. Looking at Melville's innovative environment reveals meaningful results where the networks take on significant roles equivalent to what have been traditionally classed as genetic contacts. <i>Intervisionary Network</i> explores a range of these connections and reveals that Melville was dependent on Balzac and his universal vision in much of his prose writing. <br>

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Debt to Honoré de Balzac

Chapter One: Networked Melville

Chapter Two: International Balzac

Chapter Three: M. de l'Aubépine

Chapter Four: Hawthorne's Secret?

Chapter Five: Transvisionary Translating

Chapter Six: Balzac's Types at Sea

Chapter Seven: Physiology of Thinking

Chapter Eight: American Comédie

Chapter Nine: Toward the Bouddha chrétien

Chapter Ten: The Clue in the Labyrinth

Endnotes

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 11 Aug 2017).

ISBN:

1-78694-415-4

1-942954-24-7