Up from the depths : Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and rediscovery in dark times / Aaron Sachs.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sachs, Aaron (Aaron Jacob), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Melville, Herman, 1819-1891.

Melville, Herman.

Mumford, Lewis, 1895-1990.

Mumford, Lewis.

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

Melville, Herman, 1819-1891--Appreciation.

Authors, American--19th century--Biography.

Authors, American.

Critics--United States--Biography.

Critics.

Art appreciation.

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

xx, 450 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2022]

Summary:

Up from the Depths tells the interconnected stories of two of the most important writers in American history--the novelist and poet Herman Melville (1819-1891) and one of his earliest biographers, the literary critic and historian Lewis Mumford (1895-1990). Deftly cutting back and forth between the writers, Aaron Sachs reveals the surprising resonances between their lives, work, and troubled times--and their uncanny relevance in our own age of crisis. The author of Moby-Dick was largely forgotten for several decades after his death, but Mumford helped spearhead Melville's revival in the aftermath of World War I and the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, when American culture needed a forebear with a suitably dark vision. As Mumford's career took off and he wrote books responding to the machine age, urban decay, world war, and environmental degradation, it was looking back to Melville's confrontation with crises such as industrialization, slavery, and the Civil War that helped Mumford to see his own era clearly. Mumford remained obsessed with Melville, ultimately helping to canonize him as America's greatest tragedian. But largely forgotten today is one of Mumford's key insights--that Melville's darkness was balanced by an inspiring determination to endure. Amid today's foreboding over global warming, racism, technology, pandemics, and other crises, Melville and Mumford remind us that we've been in this struggle for a long time. To rediscover these writers today is to rediscover how history can offer hope in dark times.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 Loomings (1927-29)

ch. 2 The Whiteness of the Page (1856-65)

ch. 3 Bitter Morning (1918-19)

ch. 4 Fragments of War and Peace (1865-67)

ch. 5 Reconstruction (1930-31)

ch. 6 The Golden Day (1846-50)

ch. 7 Retrospective (1956-82)

ch. 8 A Bosom Friend (1850-51)

ch. 9 Amor Threatening (1930-35)

ch. 10 Cetology (1851-52)

ch. 11 Neotechnics (1932-34)

ch. 12 The Ambiguities (1852)

ch. 13 Spiritual Freedom (1935-38)

ch. 14 The Happy Failure (1853-55)

ch. 15 Reconnaissance (1899-1925)

ch. 16 Disenchantment (1853-55)

ch. 17 Counterpoint (1938)

ch. 18 Redburn (1839-55)

ch. 19 Radburn (1923-39)

ch. 20 Revolutions (1848-55)

ch. 21 Misgivings and Preparatives (1938-39)

ch. 22 The Piazza (1856-57)

ch. 23 Faith (1940-43)

ch. 24 The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating (1856-57)

ch. 25 The Darkness of the Present Day (1944)

ch. 26 More Gloom, and the Light of That Gloom (1856-76)

ch. 27 Survival (1944-47)

ch. 28 The Warmth and Chill of Wedded Life and Death (1876-91)

ch. 29 Chronometricals and Horologicals (1944-51)

ch. 30 The Life-Buoy (1891; 1924-29)

ch. 31 Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth (1951-62)

ch. 32 Revival (1919-62)

ch. 33 Call Me Jonah (1962-82)

ch. 34 Lizzie (1891-1906)

ch. 35 Sophia (1982-97)

ch. 36 Rediscovery (2019).

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-431) and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9780691215419

0691215413

OCLC:

1273668186