Melville and Repose : The Rhetoric of Humor in the American Renaissance.

By: Bryant, JohnMaterial type: TextTextPublisher: Cary : Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1993Copyright date: ©1993Description: 1 online resource (331 pages)Content type: text Media type: computer Carrier type: online resourceISBN: 9780195360202Subject(s): American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism | Comic, The, in literature | Humorous stories, American -- History and criticism | Melville, Herman, -- 1819-1891 -- Humor | Narration (Rhetoric) | Rhetoric -- United States -- History -- 19th centuryGenre/Form: Electronic books.Additional physical formats: Print version:: Melville and Repose : The Rhetoric of Humor in the American RenaissanceDDC classification: 813/.3 LOC classification: PS2388.S2 -- B79 1993ebOnline resources: Click to View
Contents:
Intro -- Contents -- Abbreviations for Frequently Cited Sources -- 1. A Great Intellect in Repose -- Humor and Being -- Melville's Aesthetics of Repose -- Melville's Rhetoric: Voicing the Voiceless -- Melville and the Reader: "Lord when shall we be done changing? -- I: AMERICA'S COMIC DEBATE -- 2. America's Repose -- Britain's Amiable Tradition -- Amiability on Native Ground -- 3. The Example of Irving -- Irving's Comic Debate -- Salmagundi and Some Versions of the Bachelor -- A Rip in the Canvas: Irving's Picturesque -- Irving's Goldsmith and the Rhetoric of Geniality -- 4. Playing Along: America and the Rhetoric of Deceit -- The Deep Thought of Laughter -- A Veracious History of Lying -- The Lie of our Land: Forms of Comic Lying -- 5. E. A. Poe and T. B. Thorpe: Two Models of Deceit -- Poe's Humor -- Thorpe's Big Bear -- 6. The Genial Misanthrope: Melville and The Cosmopolitan Ideal -- Melville's Cosmopolite -- Europe's Cosmopolite: "At Home in Every Place -- America's Con Man Cosmopolite: "Nowhere a Stranger -- Herman Melville: "Diogenes Masquerading as a Cosmopolitan -- II: RHETORIC AND REPOSE -- TYPEE -- 7. The Anxieties of Humor -- 8. Typee in Manuscript -- 9. Tommo's Rhetoric of Deceit -- MOBY DICK -- 10. Ishmael: Sounding the Repose of If -- 11. Ahab: Personifying the Impersonal -- 12. Melville's Comedy of Doubt -- THE CONFIDENCE-MAN -- 13. Comic Debates: The Uses of Cosmopolite -- Coda: Something Further -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y.
Summary: John Bryant's book is a strong and significant argument for the centrality of the comic and repose in Melville's novels. The purpose of Melville and Repose is dual: to ground the uses of romantic humor in Melville in sensitive readings of contemporaneous European and American writings, and tooffer a definitive account of the comic as the shaping force of Melville's narrative voice throughout the major phase of his literary career. Bryant argues that Melville fused a "rhetoric of geniality" and "picturesque sensibility" adopted from the British with a "rhetoric of deceit" borrowed fromthe American tall tale in order to create his own amiably cosmopolitan "rhetoric of aesthetic repose." Thorough research into American culture and recent Melville manuscript findings, an engaging style, and full, scholarly readings combine to make this historicist study a welcome addition to thelibraries of Americanists and Melville scholars and enthusiasts.
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Intro -- Contents -- Abbreviations for Frequently Cited Sources -- 1. A Great Intellect in Repose -- Humor and Being -- Melville's Aesthetics of Repose -- Melville's Rhetoric: Voicing the Voiceless -- Melville and the Reader: "Lord when shall we be done changing? -- I: AMERICA'S COMIC DEBATE -- 2. America's Repose -- Britain's Amiable Tradition -- Amiability on Native Ground -- 3. The Example of Irving -- Irving's Comic Debate -- Salmagundi and Some Versions of the Bachelor -- A Rip in the Canvas: Irving's Picturesque -- Irving's Goldsmith and the Rhetoric of Geniality -- 4. Playing Along: America and the Rhetoric of Deceit -- The Deep Thought of Laughter -- A Veracious History of Lying -- The Lie of our Land: Forms of Comic Lying -- 5. E. A. Poe and T. B. Thorpe: Two Models of Deceit -- Poe's Humor -- Thorpe's Big Bear -- 6. The Genial Misanthrope: Melville and The Cosmopolitan Ideal -- Melville's Cosmopolite -- Europe's Cosmopolite: "At Home in Every Place -- America's Con Man Cosmopolite: "Nowhere a Stranger -- Herman Melville: "Diogenes Masquerading as a Cosmopolitan -- II: RHETORIC AND REPOSE -- TYPEE -- 7. The Anxieties of Humor -- 8. Typee in Manuscript -- 9. Tommo's Rhetoric of Deceit -- MOBY DICK -- 10. Ishmael: Sounding the Repose of If -- 11. Ahab: Personifying the Impersonal -- 12. Melville's Comedy of Doubt -- THE CONFIDENCE-MAN -- 13. Comic Debates: The Uses of Cosmopolite -- Coda: Something Further -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y.

John Bryant's book is a strong and significant argument for the centrality of the comic and repose in Melville's novels. The purpose of Melville and Repose is dual: to ground the uses of romantic humor in Melville in sensitive readings of contemporaneous European and American writings, and tooffer a definitive account of the comic as the shaping force of Melville's narrative voice throughout the major phase of his literary career. Bryant argues that Melville fused a "rhetoric of geniality" and "picturesque sensibility" adopted from the British with a "rhetoric of deceit" borrowed fromthe American tall tale in order to create his own amiably cosmopolitan "rhetoric of aesthetic repose." Thorough research into American culture and recent Melville manuscript findings, an engaging style, and full, scholarly readings combine to make this historicist study a welcome addition to thelibraries of Americanists and Melville scholars and enthusiasts.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

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