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Christian typology and social critique in Melville's "The Two Temples".(Herman Melville)(Critical essay)

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From: Christianity and Literature
Date: 20060922
Author:Cook, Jonathan A.

"The Two Temples," like Melville's other short fiction of the 1850s, is notable for its multi-layered symbolism, allusive density, and subversive thematics. As one of the three so-called "diptychs" from this period featuring paired sketches of American and English subjects, "The Two Temples" relates the experience of the unnamed narrator in pursuit of both spiritual communion and social community, first at a fashionable New York church and then at a London theater. Whereas at the church the narrator is a self-conscious outsider whose illicit attendance at a Sunday service leads ...

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