Hunting Captain Ahab: Psychological Warfare And the Melville Revival.
Based on Spark's 1993 dissertation, The Melville Revival,  1919-1953 (UCLA), this complex work threads together two areas  of study. Spark incorporates a significant amount of research to  establish both the environment Melville wrote in and the path  taken in the 20th century by Melville studies, which were much  affected by the changing political atmosphere. Unlike most  Melville criticism, this work integrates political, economic,  and social history with standard literary criticism. While Spark  provides a close reading of the later works (Moby-Dick, Pierre,  and Clarel) and traces similar themes through them, her main  focus is 20th-century criticism. The strength of the work is her  ability to provide an appealing intellectual history of the  early to mid-1900s as she follows the development of Melville  studies through the political flux of this century. For academic  libraries. Paolina Taglienti, Long Island Univ. Lib., Brooklyn,  NYCopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.