Empire for Liberty: Melville and the Poetics of IndividualismWai Chee Dimock approaches Herman Melville not as a timeless genius, but as a historical figure caught in the politics of an imperial nation and an "imperial self." She challenges our customary view by demonstrating a link between the individualism that enabled Melville to write as a sovereign author and the nationalism that allowed America to grow into what Jefferson hoped would be an "empire for liberty." |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 48
Page 7
... things in [ itself ] . ” Indeed , the art of authorship , as he describes it in a celebrated moment in “ Hawthorne and His Mosses , ” is none other than the art of escape : " in this world of lies , Truth is forced to fly like a scared ...
... things in [ itself ] . ” Indeed , the art of authorship , as he describes it in a celebrated moment in “ Hawthorne and His Mosses , ” is none other than the art of escape : " in this world of lies , Truth is forced to fly like a scared ...
Page 8
... Blackstone had resorted to the same idiom when he characterized the basis of individual freedom— " the right of property ” —as “ that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the 8 CHAPTER 1.
... Blackstone had resorted to the same idiom when he characterized the basis of individual freedom— " the right of property ” —as “ that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the 8 CHAPTER 1.
Page 9
... things of the world . " 15 Even more famously , and closer to home , Jefferson had immortalized the same idiom , the same conjunction of freedom and dominion , in his striking ( and not altogether oxymoronic ) praise of America : as an ...
... things of the world . " 15 Even more famously , and closer to home , Jefferson had immortalized the same idiom , the same conjunction of freedom and dominion , in his striking ( and not altogether oxymoronic ) praise of America : as an ...
Page 10
... thing ) where the imperial self of Jacksonian individualism recapitulates the logic of Jacksonian imperialism . Indeed , it is through Melville , through his authorial exercises in freedom and dominion , that we are able to see Manifest ...
... thing ) where the imperial self of Jacksonian individualism recapitulates the logic of Jacksonian imperialism . Indeed , it is through Melville , through his authorial exercises in freedom and dominion , that we are able to see Manifest ...
Page 28
You have reached your viewing limit for this book.
You have reached your viewing limit for this book.
Contents
Author as Monarch | 42 |
Author as Subject | 76 |
Blaming the Victim | 109 |
Knowing the Victim | 140 |
Personified Accounting | 176 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
action actually Ahab allegory already altogether American antebellum appears attributes become better body calls chapter characters claim comes common confidence Confidence-Man constitutive course critics death discussion dominion doom double economy empire equally example fact fate figure freedom function future give hand happens human idea identity imagine imperial Indian individual instance interesting Isabel Jarl John kind knowledge labor language less liberty literary logic Lucy Manifest Destiny Mardi meaning Melville Melville's Moby-Dick narrative narrator nature never once operates perhaps person personified Pierre Political positions possession present produces promising reader Redburn reference reform relation rhetoric seems sense short simply social sovereignty space spatial speak story structure suggests tell temporal thing thought tion turns United University Press vengeance victim whale White-Jacket writes York