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The Romantic Architecture of Melville.(Herman Melville)

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From: Melville Society Extracts
Date: 20020201
Author:Hellen, Anna

The Shelleyan Sub-Text of Moby-Dick

In his first book, The Romantic Architecture of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Shawn Thomson undertakes to read Melville's novel as an expression and extension of the Romantic imagination, in particular of Shelley's philosophy, as it comes across in his major poetry as well as in A Defence of Poetry. Shelley's ideas, Thomson argues, are implicit but omnipresent in Moby-Dick, governing the novel on a thematic as well as on a structural level. Above all, Thomson argues, Shelley's thinking provides a stepping-stone for Melville's authorial ...

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