ENG 161 - Melville

Institution:

Long Island University-C W Post Campus

Subject:

Description:

Covering Melville's exotic travel narrative about the South Seas (Typee), his famous novel about the pursuit of a great whale (Moby-Dick), his gothic urban novel Pierre, his story of con-artists on the Mississippi (The Confidence Man), as well as his shorter works such as "Bartleby the Scrivener," Benito Cereno, and Billy Budd, this course examines Herman Melville's journey as a writer interested in "forms" of all kinds: aesthetic, novelistic, social, cultural, legal, and historical. We will analyze Melville experiments in narrative construction, and will relate this to the ideological implications of history writing and to the power structures such writing serves. In addition, we will consider other aspects of the work: Melville's view of race and non-Western culture; the connections between slavery in the South and the economic conditions in the industrial North; nature's law and man's law; national identity and the notion of a national literature for America. Melville will be also be discussed in relation to his contemporaries: Emerson, Poe, and Hawthorne. Prerequisites of ENG 1 and ENG 2 are required.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.liu.edu

Phone Number:

(516) 299-2900

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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