From: "Russell Pearson" <r.pearson-AT-clara.net>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Literary criticism
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 23:53:19 -0000


> I suppose if I was teaching a course in American Literature today, I'd
> follow the same sort of analysis that I sketched at in my discussion of
> Moby Dick.
>It seems ludicrous to treat this great work of literature solely
> as a treatment of metaphysical themes of good-versus-evil. Melville was
> very much concerned with the social reality of whaling, as the extensive
> discussion of the actual work on shipboard reveals.

Call me Queequeg, but I don't see Melville as a being particularly social
realist- all that dressing up in whale's foreskins and the general screen
of homo-eroticism. 

I'm reminded of a essay by WTJ Mitchell, where he points out that Marx
never got round to turning Hegel's aesthetics back on their improper
footing. Marxist aesthetics he argues are thus still stuck in a moribund
19th century trap of realism, of representation etc. 
The early Macherey still captures my imagination and although the poor sod
is now very much out of fashion I'm still looking for a Marxist theorist
who can really take things forward. 

But back to Melville, please expand some more- I missed most your earlier
posts...

Russ


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