Melville and Repose: The Rhetoric of Humor in the American RenaissanceJohn Bryant's book is a strong and significant argument for the centrality of the comic and repose in Melville's novels. The purpose of Melville and Repose is dual: to ground the uses of romantic humor in Melville in sensitive readings of contemporaneous European and American writings, and to offer a definitive account of the comic as the shaping force of Melville's narrative voice throughout the major phase of his literary career. Bryant argues that Melville fused a "rhetoric of geniality" and "picturesque sensibility" adopted from the British with a "rhetoric of deceit" borrowed from the American tall tale in order to create his own amiably cosmopolitan "rhetoric of aesthetic repose." Thorough research into American culture and recent Melville manuscript findings, an engaging style, and full, scholarly readings combine to make this historicist study a welcome addition to the libraries of Americanists and Melville scholars and enthusiasts. |
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Melville and Repose: The Rhetoric of Humor in the American Renaissance John Bryant Limited preview - 1993 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetics of repose Ahab Ahab's allegory American amiable humor anxiety argues artist becomes benevolence Big Bear burlesque cannibalism Cetology chapter character comic debate confidence game Confidence-Man cosmopolitan creative critical culture doubt dramatic Drybone duped Dupin Duyckinck Edgar Allan Poe Emerson essay fact false Fayaway fiction finally genial misanthrope Goldsmith Goodman Hawthorne Hawthorne's Hazlitt heart Herman Melville hoax human humbug humorist instinct irony Irving Irving's Ishmael Jim's Kory-Kory Langstaff laughter liar Ligeia literary Marnoo Melville's metaphysical mind misanthrope Moby Moby Dick Moby-Dick moral Moredock narrative narrator native nature Noble Noble's Nolte novel philosophical picturesque Pip's Pitch play Poe's poetic political Polynesian Queequeg readers rhetoric of deceit rhetorical satire scene sense sensibility sexual Shaftesbury silence social Starbuck stranger Stubb sublime symbolic tall tale tense repose Toby Toby's Tommo transcendence transcendental truth Typee University Press voice Washington Irving whale words writing York
Popular passages
Page 109 - He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds.
Page 74 - Doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
Page 64 - Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in...
Page 93 - Vidocq, for example, was a good guesser and a persevering man. But, without educated thought, he erred continually by the very intensity of his investigations. He impaired his vision by holding the object too close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so doing he necessarily lost sight of the matter as a whole.
Page 201 - And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of 'joy.
Page 38 - MAN is the only animal that laughs and weeps ; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
Page 191 - I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it.
Page 18 - Through storms you reach them and from storms are free. Afar descried, the foremost drear in hue, But, nearer, green; and, on the marge, the sea Makes thunder low and mist of rainbowed dew.
Page 189 - Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally.