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Herman Melville is a towering figure in American literature - arguably the country's greatest nineteenth-century writer. Revising a number of entrenched misunderstandings about Melville in his later years, this is a remarkable and unprecedented account of the aged author giving himself over to a life of the mind. Focusing exclusively on a period usually associated with the waning of Melville's literary powers, William B.
Dillingham shows that he was actually concentrating and intensifying his thoughts on art and creativity to a greater degree than ever before.
What sustained Melville during that final period of ill health and near-poverty, says Dillingham, was his "circle," not of close friends but of works by a number of writers that he read with appreciative, yet discriminating, affinity, including Matthew Arnold, James Thomson, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Honore de Balzac.
Dillingham relates these readings to Melville's own poetry and prose and to a rich variety of largely under-appreciated topics relevant to Melville's later life, from Buddhism, the School of Pessimism, and New York intellectual life to Melville's job at the ever-corrupt customs house, his fear of disgrace and increased self-absorption, and his engagement with both the picturesque and the methaphorical power of roses in art and literature.
This portrait of the great writer's final years is at once a biography, an intellectual history, and a discerning reading of his mature work. By showing that Melville's isolation was a conscious intellectual decision rather than a psychological quirk, Melville and His Circle reveals much that is new and challenging about Melville himself and about our notions of age and the persistence of imagination and creativity.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
American Novelists, Friends and associates, Social life and customs, Novelists, American, Intellectual life, Homes and haunts, Biography, Homes, Romanciers americains, Biographies, M¿urs et coutumes, Freundeskreis, Amis et relations, Manners and customs, Friendship, Livres et lectures, Residences et lieux familiers, Vie intellectuelle, Dernieres annees, Melville, herman, 1819-1891, Authors, biography, New york (n.y.), social life and customs, New york (n.y.), intellectual life, New york (n.y.), biographyPeople
Herman Melville (1819-1891)Places
New York, New York (N.Y.), New York (State)Times
19th centuryShowing 2 featured editions. View all 2 editions?
Edition | Availability |
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1
Melville and His Circle: The Last Years
2008, University of Georgia Press
in English
0820332720 9780820332727
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2
Melville & his circle: the last years
1996, University of Georgia Press
in English
0820318566 9780820318561
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Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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