num_pages: 166
description: First published in 1947, this acknowledged classic of American literary criticism explores the influences -- especially Shakespearean ones -- on Melville's writing of Moby-Dick. One of the first Melvilleans to advance what has since become known as the "theory of the two Moby-Dicks," Olson argues that there were two versions of Moby-Dick, and that Melville's reading King Lear for the first time in between the first and second versions of the book had a profound impact on his conception of the "the first book did not contain Ahab," writes Olson, and "it may not, except incidentally, have contained Moby-Dick." If literary critics and reviewers at the time responded with varying degrees of skepticism to the "theory of the two Moby-Dicks," it was the experimental style and organization of the book that generated the most controversy.
language: English
title: Call Me Ishmael
titlecomplete: Call Me Ishmael
genres: Literary Fiction, Literary Criticism, Essays, Classics, Writing, Criticism, American, Nonfiction, Literature, Poetry
ratings_count: 388
publisher: Jonathan Cape, Cape Editions series