Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-431) and index.
Contents:
Rediscovery (2019). Chapter 36. 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).
Summary:
Up 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.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.