Up from the Depths : : Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times / / Aaron Sachs.

A double portrait of two of America’s most influential writers that reveals the surprising connections between them—and their uncanny relevance to our age of crisisUp from the Depths tells the interconnected stories of two of the most important writers in American history—the novelist and poet Herma...

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Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English
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Place / Publishing House:Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2022]
©2022
Year of Publication:2022
Language:English
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Physical Description:1 online resource (472 p.) :; 18 b/w illus.
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Other title:Frontmatter --
CONTENTS --
List of Illustrations --
Preface. Melville, Mumford, Modernity --
Chapter 1. Loomings (1927–29) --
Chapter 2. The Whiteness of the Page (1856–65) --
Chapter 3. Bitter Morning (1918–19) --
Chapter 4. Fragments of War and Peace (1865–67) --
Chapter 5. Reconstruction (1930–31) --
Chapter 6. The Golden Day (1846–50) --
Chapter 7. Retrospective (1956–82) --
Chapter 8. A Bosom Friend (1850–51) --
Chapter 9. Amor Threatening (1930–35) --
Chapter 10. Cetology (1851–52) --
Chapter 11. Neotechnics (1932–34) --
Chapter 12. The Ambiguities (1852) --
Chapter 13. Spiritual Freedom (1935–38) --
Chapter 14. The Happy Failure (1853–55) --
Chapter 15. Reconnaissance (1899–1925) --
Chapter 16. Disenchantment (1853–55) --
Chapter 17. Counterpoint (1938) --
Chapter 18. Redburn (1839–55) --
Chapter 19. Radburn (1923–39) --
Chapter 20. Revolutions (1848–55) --
Chapter 21. Misgivings and Preparatives (1938–39) --
Chapter 22. The Piazza (1856–57) --
Chapter 23. Faith (1940–43) --
Chapter 24. The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating (1856–57) --
Chapter 25. The Darkness of the Present Day (1944) --
Chapter 26. More Gloom, and the Light of That Gloom (1856–76) --
Chapter 27. Survival (1944–47) --
Chapter 28. The Warmth and Chill of Wedded Life and Death (1876–91) --
Chapter 29. Chronometricals and Horologicals (1944–51) --
Chapter 30. The Life-Buoy (1891; 1924–29) --
Chapter 31. Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth (1951–62) --
Chapter 32. Revival (1919–62) --
Chapter 33. Call Me Jonah (1962–82) --
Chapter 34. Lizzie (1891–1906) --
Chapter 35. Sophia (1982–97) --
Chapter 36. Rediscovery (2019) --
Acknowledgments --
Notes --
Illustration Credits --
Index
Summary:A double portrait of two of America’s most influential writers that reveals the surprising connections between them—and their uncanny relevance to our age of crisisUp from the Depths tells the interconnected stories of two of the most important writers in American history—the novelist and poet Herman Melville (1819–1891) and one of his earliest biographers, the literary critic and historian Lewis Mumford (1895–1990). Deftly cutting back and forth between the writers, Aaron Sachs reveals the surprising resonances between their lives, work, and troubled times—and their uncanny relevance in our own age of crisis.The author of Moby-Dick was largely forgotten for several decades after his death, but Mumford helped spearhead Melville’s revival in the aftermath of World War I and the 1918–1919 flu pandemic, when American culture needed a forebear with a suitably dark vision. As Mumford’s career took off and he wrote books responding to the machine age, urban decay, world war, and environmental degradation, it was looking back to Melville’s confrontation with crises such as industrialization, slavery, and the Civil War that helped Mumford to see his own era clearly. Mumford remained obsessed with Melville, ultimately helping to canonize him as America’s greatest tragedian. But largely forgotten today is one of Mumford’s key insights—that Melville’s darkness was balanced by an inspiring determination to endure.Amid today’s foreboding over global warming, racism, technology, pandemics, and other crises, Melville and Mumford remind us that we’ve been in this struggle for a long time. To rediscover these writers today is to rediscover how history can offer hope in dark times.
Format:Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
ISBN:9780691236940
9783110993899
9783110994810
9783110992960
9783110992939
9783110749731
DOI:10.1515/9780691236940?locatt=mode:legacy
Access:restricted access
Hierarchical level:Monograph
Statement of Responsibility: Aaron Sachs.