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Cannibal Old Me - Spoken Sources in Melville's Early Works (Paperback)
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Cannibal Old Me - Spoken Sources in Melville's Early Works (Paperback)
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Mary Bercaw Edwards has researched the sources very thoroughly,
going well beyond the previously published source studies. The
result is a sound historical account of the talk Melville
encountered in the 1840s, and in emphasising the oral sources of
Melville's discourses, Edwards provides an original contribution to
source studies of Melville. She presents her research interestingly
as well, in clear, readable prose. Her scholarship will certainly
be of interest to Melville scholars, but it will also engage the
attention of anyone interested in American culture and popular
culture of the period. John Samson, associate professor of English,
Texas Tech University At the age of twenty-one, Herman Melville
signed on the whaleship Acushnet as a common seaman and sailed from
Massachusetts to the South Pacific. Upon reaching Nuku Hiva in the
Marquesas Islands, he deserted and spent a month ashore on this
reputed cannibal island. He departed as crew of another whaleship
but was put ashore in the heavily missionised Tahitian islands
after participating in a bloodless mutiny. Eventually making his
way to Hawaii, he joined the crew of the American frigate United
States and finally reached Boston in October 1844 after four years
at sea. By the time he sat down to write his first book, Melville
had been recounting tales of these experiences orally for four
years. The spoken elements of the overlapping discourses involving
sailors, cannibals, and missionaries are essential to his first six
books. Mary K. Bercaw Edwards investigates the interplay between
spoken sources and written narratives. She closely examines how
Melville altered original stories, and she questions his
truthfulness about his experiences. Bercaw Edwards also explores
the synergistic blend of the oral and written worlds of seafaring
and the South Pacific and provides an analysis of Melville's
development as a writer. It is a study of the aesthetic, ethical,
linguistic, and cultural implications of Melville's borrowing.
Cannibal Old Me is an excellent contribution to Melville
scholarship, challenging long-held assumptions regarding his early
works. Scholars as well as students will welcome it as an
indispensable addition to the study of nineteenth-century
literature and maritime history.
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