Melville's city
Subtitle: literary and urban form in nineteenth-century New York
By: Wyn Kelley.
Series: Cambridge studies in American literature and culture ;; 100
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 312
Subjects: Melville, Herman, 1819-1891 -- Knowledge -- New York (N.Y.); City and town life in literature.; Cities and towns in literature.; Literary form -- History -- 19th century.; New York (N.Y.) -- Intellectual life -- 19th century.; New York (N.Y.) -- In literature.
Description: Melville's City argues that Melville's relationship to the city was considerably more complex than has generally been believed. By placing him in the historical and cultural context of nineteenth-century New York, Kelley presents a Melville who borrowed from the colorful cultural variety of the city while at the same time investigating its darker and more dangerous social aspects.

She shows that images both from Melville and from popular sources of the time represented New York variously as Capital, Labyrinth, City of Man, and City of God, and she goes on to demonstrate that he resisted a generalizing or totalizing representation of the city by revealing its hybrid identity and giving voice to the poor, the displaced, and the racially excluded.

Through close examination of works spanning Melville's career, she forges a new analysis of the connections between urban and literary form.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-304) and index.