Melville S Wisdom

In Melville's Wisdom: Religion, Skepticism, Literature in Nineteenth-Century America, Damien B. Schlarb explores the manner in which Herman Melville responds to the spiritual crisis of modernity by using the language of the biblical Old Testament wisdom books to moderate contemporary discourses on religion, skepticism, and literature. Schlarb argues that attending to Melville's engagement with the wisdom books (Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes) can help us understand a paradox at the heart of American modernity: the simultaneous displacement and affirmation of biblical language and religious culture. In wisdom, which addresses questions of theology, radical skepticism, and the nature of evil, Melville finds an ethos of critical inquiry that allows him to embrace modern analytical techniques, such as higher biblical criticism. In the medium of literature, he articulates a new way of accessing the Bible by marrying the moral and spiritual didacticism of its language with the intellectual distance afforded by critical reflection, a hallmark of modern intellectual style. Melville's Wisdom joins other works of post secular literary studies in challenging its own discipline's constitutive secularization narrative by rethinking modern, putatively secular cultural formations in terms of their reciprocity with religious concepts and texts. Schlarb foregrounds Melville's sustained, career-spanning concern with biblical wisdom, its formal properties, and its knowledge-creating potential. By excavating this project from his oeuvre, Melville's Wisdom shows how Melville celebrates intellectually rigorous, critical inquisitiveness, an attitude that we often associate with modernity but which Melville saw augured by the wisdom books. He finds in this attitude the means for avoiding the spiritually corrosive effects of skepticism.

Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1st, 1819, the third of eight children. At the age of 7 Melville contracted scarlet fever which was to permanently diminish his eyesight. At this time Melville was described as being "very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension." His father died when he was 12 leaving the family in very straitened times. Just 14 Melville took a job in a bank paying $150 a year that he obtained via his uncle, Peter Gansevoort, who was one of the directors of the New York State Bank. After a failed stint as a surveyor he signed on to go to sea and travelled across the Atlantic to Liverpool and then on further voyages to the Pacific on adventures which would soon become the architecture of his novels. Whilst travelling he joined a mutiny, was jailed, fell in love with a South Pacific beauty and became known as a figure of opposition to the coercion of native Hawaiians to the Christian religion. He drew from these experiences in his books Typee, Omoo, and White-Jacket. These were published as novels, the first initially in London in 1846. By 1851 his masterpiece, Moby Dick, was ready to be published. It is perhaps, and certainly at the time, one of the most ambitious novels ever written. However, it never sold out its initial print run of 3,000 and Melville's earnings on this masterpiece were a mere $556.37. In succeeding years his reputation waned and he found life increasingly difficult. His family was growing, now four children, and a stable income was essential. With his finances in a disappointing state Melville took the advice of friends that a change in career was called for. For many others public lecturing had proved very rewarding. From late 1857 to 1860, Melville embarked upon three lecture tours, where he spoke mainly on Roman statuary and sightseeing in Rome. In 1876 he was at last able to publish privately his 16,000 line epic poem Clarel. It was to no avail. The book had an initial printing of 350 copies, but sales failed miserably. On December 31st, 1885 Melville was at last able to retire. His wife had inherited several small legacies and provide them with a reasonable income. Herman Melville, novelist, poet, short story writer and essayist, died at his home on September 28rh 1891 from cardiovascular disease.

Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1st, 1819, the third of eight children. At the age of 7 Melville contracted scarlet fever which was to permanently diminish his eyesight. At this time Melville was described as being "very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension." His father died when he was 12 leaving the family in very straitened times. Just 14 Melville took a job in a bank paying $150 a year that he obtained via his uncle, Peter Gansevoort, who was one of the directors of the New York State Bank. After a failed stint as a surveyor he signed on to go to sea and travelled across the Atlantic to Liverpool and then on further voyages to the Pacific on adventures which would soon become the architecture of his novels. Whilst travelling he joined a mutiny, was jailed, fell in love with a South Pacific beauty and became known as a figure of opposition to the coercion of native Hawaiians to the Christian religion. He drew from these experiences in his books Typee, Omoo, and White-Jacket. These were published as novels, the first initially in London in 1846. By 1851 his masterpiece, Moby Dick, was ready to be published. It is perhaps, and certainly at the time, one of the most ambitious novels ever written. However, it never sold out its initial print run of 3,000 and Melville's earnings on this masterpiece were a mere $556.37. In succeeding years his reputation waned and he found life increasingly difficult. His family was growing, now four children, and a stable income was essential. With his finances in a disappointing state Melville took the advice of friends that a change in career was called for. For many others public lecturing had proved very rewarding. From late 1857 to 1860, Melville embarked upon three lecture tours, where he spoke mainly on Roman statuary and sightseeing in Rome. In 1876 he was at last able to publish privately his 16,000 line epic poem Clarel. It was to no avail. The book had an initial printing of 350 copies, but sales failed miserably. On December 31st, 1885 Melville was at last able to retire. His wife had inherited several small legacies and provide them with a reasonable income. Herman Melville, novelist, poet, short story writer and essayist, died at his home on September 28rh 1891 from cardiovascular disease.

Susan's letter came from California: Hand was in jail, and she was on the run. Twenty-four hours later, Hawk is free, because Spenser has sprung him loose—for a brutal cross-country journey back to the East Coast. Now the two men are on a violent ride to find the woman Spenser loves, the man who took her, and the shocking reason so many people had to die. . . . Praise for A Catskill Eagle “Entertaining.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune “His best mystery novel.”—Time

Within the Christian theological tradition there has always been a variety of perspectives on hell, usually distinguished according to their views about the duration of hell's torments for the damned. Traditionalists maintain that the suffering of the damned is everlasting. Universalists claim that eventually every person is redeemed and arrives in heaven. And conditional immortalists, also known as "conditionalists" or "annihilationists," reject both the concept of eternal torment as well as universal salvation, instead claiming that after a finite period of suffering the damned are annihilated. Conditionalism has enjoyed somewhat of a revival in scholarly circles in recent years, buoyed by the influential biblical defense of the view by Edward Fudge. However, there has yet to appear a book-length philosophical defense of conditionalism . . . until now. In Hell and Divine Goodness, James Spiegel assesses the three major alternative theories of hell, arriving at the conclusion that the conditionalist view is, all things considered, the most defensible position on the issue.

The long-awaited companion volume to Gail Coffler's first book, Melville's Classical Allusions, has finally arrived. In this new volume, thousands of references to Judeo-Christian and other religions in Herman Melville's books are references. The index includes references to all of his novels, short stories, poetry, lectures, letters, and journals. With it, one can trace a given allusion through the entire canon, or research any individual work, such as Moby Dick, Billy Budd, or Benito Cereno from beginning to end. Readers interested in Melville's writing and philosophy as well as researchers of 19th century literature, culture, and religion will appreciate this book. This volume begins with a master index that lists all religious allusions and their location throughout Melville's works. Next, there is an alphabetical index and a sequential index of all allusions in each of the individual volumes. The sequential index lists allusions in their chronological page order and identifies many bible passages alluded to or quoted by Melville, citing the bible book, chapter, and verse. A supplementary index alphabetically lists the allusions in Melville's Correspondence and Journals. The book concludes with a glossary briefly explaining all allusions and gives cross references to related entries.

This new collection offers timely, critical essays specially commissioned to provide a comprehensive overview of Melville's career.

A “brilliant and provocative” (The New Yorker) celebration of Melville’s masterpiece—from the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea, Valiant Ambition, and In the Hurricane's Eye One of the greatest American novels finds its perfect contemporary champion in Why Read Moby-Dick?, Nathaniel Philbrick’s enlightening and entertaining tour through Melville’s classic. As he did in his National Book Award–winning bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick brings a sailor’s eye and an adventurer’s passion to unfolding the story behind an epic American journey. He skillfully navigates Melville’s world and illuminates the book’s humor and unforgettable characters—finding the thread that binds Ishmael and Ahab to our own time and, indeed, to all times. An ideal match between author and subject, Why Read Moby-Dick? will start conversations, inspire arguments, and make a powerful case that this classic tale waits to be discovered anew. “Gracefully written [with an] infectious enthusiasm…”—New York Times Book Review