No Mysteries Out of Ourselves : Identity and Textual Form in the Novels of Herman Melville / Peter J. Bellis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bellis, Peter J., author.

Series:

Anniversary Collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

Melville, Herman.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [1990]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In this book Peter J. Bellis aims to show how Melville's career is shaped by his desire to define and represent the self, to find a secure identity on which to base personal and social relations. Using Typee, Pierre, White-Jacket, Redburn, Billy Budd, and Moby-Dick as models, Bellis isolates three forms of selfhood--the integrity of the physical body, the son's genealogical link to his father, and the coherence of an autobiographical text--that Melville explores throughout his work. He shows how, as Melville texts each of these, his work becomes increasingly self-reflexive and self-critical; his search for an absolute ground for both self and text ends by undermining the very authority it would establish. In this Melville differed markedly from Whitman and Thoreau, who did find or create identities for themselves in their writing.Bellis examines Melville's last novel, The Confidence-Man, to show his method as ultimately deconstructive--culminating, in fact, in the abandonment of Melville's own career as a novelist.

Contents:

Introduction

Bodily identity: the changing shape of the physical self

Genealogical identity: filial repetition and rebellion

Textual identity: autobiography and the fiction of self-creation

In confidence: identity as interpretive construction.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-215) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 19. Jan 2018)

ISBN:

9781512800593

1512800597

OCLC:

1024050137