Ahab's rolling sea A natural history of Moby-Dick
Book - 2019
"A revelation for Moby-Dick devotees and neophytes alike, Ahab's Rolling Sea is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville's novel. From white whales to whale intelligence, giant squids, barnacles, albatrosses, and sharks, Richard J. King examines what Melville knew from his own experiences and the sources available to a reader in the mid-1800s, exploring how and why Melville might have twisted what was known to serve his fiction. King climbs to the crow's nest, setting Melville at the very start of the Industrial Revolution and just before the publication of On the Origin of Species. He compares Ahab's and Ishmael's worldviews to how we see the ocean today: an expanse still immortal and su...blime, but also in crisis. And although the concept of stewardship of the sea would have been entirely foreign, if not absurd, to Melville, King argues that Ishmael reveals his own tendencies toward what we would now call environmentalism. Featuring a coffer of illustrations and an array of interviews with contemporary scientists, fishers, and whale watch operators, Ahab's Rolling Sea offers insight not only into a cherished masterwork and its author but also into our evolving relationship with the briny deep--from whale hunters to climate refugees."--Dust jacket.
- Subjects
- Genres
- Literary criticism
- Published
-
Chicago :
University of Chicago Press
2019.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Physical Description
- 430 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 24 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 365-413) and index.
- ISBN
- 9780226514963
- Introduction
- 1. Herman Melville: Whaleman, Author, Natural Philosopher
- 2. Numerous Fish Documents
- 3. Cetology and Evolution
- 4. White Whales and Natural Theology
- 5. Whale Migration
- 6. Wind
- 7. Gulls, Sea-Ravens, and Albatrosses
- 8. Small Harmless Fish
- 9. Phosphorescence
- 10. Sword-Fish and Lively Grounds
- 11. Brit and Baleen
- 12. Giant Squid
- 13. Sharks
- 14. Fresh Fare
- 15. Barnacles and Sea Candies
- 16. Practical Cetology: Spout, Senses, and the Dissection of Heads
- 17. Whale and Human Intelligence
- 18. Ambergris
- 19. Coral Insects
- 20. Grandissimus
- 21. Whale Skeletons and Fossils
- 22. Does the Whale Diminish?
- 23. Mother Carey's Chickens
- 24. Typhoons and Corpusants
- 25. Navigation
- 26. Seals
- 27. The Feminine Air
- 28. Noiseless Nautilus
- 29. Sperm Whale Behavior
- 30. Sky-Hawk
- 31. Ishmael: Blue Environmentalist and Climate Refugee
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Figure Credits and Notes
- Index
- A gallery of platesfollows page 206.
