Melville and the Idea of Blackness: Race and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century America

by Christopher Freeburg

Book Overview

By examining the unique problems that "blackness" signifies in Moby-Dick, Pierre, "Benito Cereno, and The Encantadas, Christopher Freeburg analyzes how Herman Melville grapples with the social realities of racial difference in nineteenth-century America. Where Melville's critics typically read blackness as either a metaphor for the haunting power of slavery or an allegory of moral evil, Freeburg asserts that blackness functions as the site where Melville...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1107477832
• ISBN13: 9781107477834
• Release Date: January 2015
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"