FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W4230793049> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W4230793049 endingPage "73" @default.
• W4230793049 startingPage "62" @default.
• W4230793049 abstract "Intertexts, Vol. 2, No. 1,1998 Melville’s Theoretical Territory: Elemental Contingency and Nomadic Lines of Flight John Samson T E X A S T E C H U N I V E R S I T Y Like the person Herman Melville, the author and thinker Herman Melville travels widely and deeply. The man gets around. In “Song of MyselP Walt Whitman concludes, “I stop somewhere waiting for you,” but for me, as for arelatively small number of Melville scholars, it is Melville not Whitman whom Ialways find waiting as Iwander the territory of twentieth-century theory. William V. Spanos has most fully argued, though in his nearly unreadable heideggerian prose, for the postmodernity of The Errant Art o/’Moby-Dick, seeing in it adeconstructive critique of cold war ideology and an anticipation of postcolonial discourse. Nancy Fredricks examines Moby-Dick and Pierre; or, theAmbiguities in terms of theissuesofclass,popularculture,andfeminism,andshe,likeSpanos,po¬ sitions Melville very clearly in the range of current literary-theoretical con¬ cerns. Looking at the theoretical dimensions of Melville’s descriptions of the sea and sea experience, Iwant to extend such discussions as those of Spanos and Fredricks to envision Melville’s anticipating amajor line of thoughtfromFriedrichNietzschetoJacquesDerridaandbeyond,theline RichardRortysummarizesasContingency,Irony,andSolidarity—perhaps the major genealogical plot line, or, better, rhizomatic outcropping, of re¬ cent theory. Seeing societies and their discourses not as expressions of an underlying ahistorical “human nature” or as realizations of suprahistorical goals, Nietzsche and others, such as Mikhail Bakhtin, have described these discourses as historical contingencies. Their response is thus irony, in Rorty ’s terms, “radical and continuing doubts” about the final vocabulary that one uses for these descriptions, or, in the words of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, apolitical “line of flight” from the totalizing, unironized machin¬ eryoftheStateapparatusandits“signifyingregime.”Melvilleexpresses thislineofthoughtmostcogentlyinhisdiscourseofthesea,particularly Moby-Dick, but he grounds this cfiscourse firmly in acritique of the State apparatus in narrative moments, particularly Pierre, taking place on land. 1. The Sea: Elemental Contingency and Irony To Melville, despite all his gestures toward factuality, the sea is never merely the sea—there is always asymbolic or theoreticd dimension, and usually several. His voyages are always theoretical voyages: into the nature of humanity and the origins of society in Typee and Omoo, into the operations 6 2 Samson—Melville’s Theoretical Territory 6 3 of the State in Redbum and White-Jacket, and into the ontology and episte¬ mology of Truth, God, and virtually everything else in Mardi and MobyDick . The reverse also holds, for even in Pierre, the most landlocked of Melville’s novels, Melville describes the pursuit of theoretical understand¬ ing with sea imagery: in coming to his “final resolution” to leave Saddle Meadows and pursue maturity and ultimate Truth, Pierre resembles “the restless sailor [who] breaks from every unfolding arm, and puts to sea in height of tempest that blows oflF shore” (181). Whether Pierre or MobyDick 's Bulkington, whom Pierre echoes in this passage, he who would con¬ sider or attain tmth must be avoyager. In Nietzsche’s terms, he who would seek to go beyond “the Prejudices of Philosophers” and be a“fi-ee spirit” must be asailor: “if one has drifted there [into the “domain of dangerous insights”] with one’s bark, well! all right! let us clench our teeth! let us openoureyesandkeepourhandfirmonthehelm!Wesailrightovermor ^ty,wecrush,wedestroyperhapstheremainsofourownmoralityby daring to make our voyage there.. ..Never yet did aprofounder vfOTld of insightrevealitselftodaringtravelersandadventurers”{BeyondGoodand 31-32; cf Deleuze, Nietzsche It is obvious that this voyaging is to Melville central to the develop¬ ment of the individual, and the individual thinker and novelist. How it is so might well be explained by recourse to Rorty’s term “contingency,” which involves tliree areas—contingency of culture, of self, and of language— each present in Mehille’s descriptions of the sea. Most obrious, Melville’s characters’ sea experiences force them into contact with various and alien cultures, asituation that allows Melville to portray his own culture’s values not as absolute but as relative, contingent upon their particular historical situation. Ishmael, in his acceptance of Queequeg’s culture in particular and his “acknowledging the common continent of men .... [among the] Anacharsis Clootz deputation from all..." @default.
• W4230793049 created "2022-05-11" @default.
• W4230793049 creator A5058843367 @default.
• W4230793049 date "1998-01-01" @default.
• W4230793049 modified "2023-10-17" @default.
• W4230793049 title "Melville’s Theoretical Territory: Elemental Contingency and Nomadic Lines of Flight" @default.
• W4230793049 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/itx.1998.0011" @default.
• W4230793049 hasPublicationYear "1998" @default.
• W4230793049 type Work @default.
• W4230793049 citedByCount "0" @default.
• W4230793049 crossrefType "journal-article" @default.
• W4230793049 hasAuthorship W4230793049A5058843367 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C105795698 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C111472728 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C124952713 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C138885662 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C142362112 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C158071213 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C167651023 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C17744445 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C199360897 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C199539241 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C2778029271 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C2779310970 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C2779975665 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C33923547 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C41008148 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C509535802 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C94625758 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C95457728 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConcept C97508593 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C105795698 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C111472728 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C124952713 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C138885662 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C142362112 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C158071213 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C167651023 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C17744445 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C199360897 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C199539241 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C2778029271 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C2779310970 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C2779975665 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C33923547 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C41008148 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C509535802 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C94625758 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C95457728 @default.
• W4230793049 hasConceptScore W4230793049C97508593 @default.
• W4230793049 hasIssue "1" @default.
• W4230793049 hasLocation W42307930491 @default.
• W4230793049 hasOpenAccess W4230793049 @default.
• W4230793049 hasPrimaryLocation W42307930491 @default.
• W4230793049 hasRelatedWork W1567696251 @default.
• W4230793049 hasRelatedWork W1978392046 @default.
• W4230793049 hasRelatedWork W2162680714 @default.
• W4230793049 hasRelatedWork W2187270519 @default.
• W4230793049 hasRelatedWork W2371341989 @default.
• W4230793049 hasRelatedWork W2567214725 @default.
• W4230793049 hasRelatedWork W2891397393 @default.
• W4230793049 hasRelatedWork W2966571390 @default.
• W4230793049 hasRelatedWork W3009473678 @default.
• W4230793049 hasRelatedWork W4206435674 @default.
• W4230793049 hasVolume "2" @default.
• W4230793049 isParatext "false" @default.
• W4230793049 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W4230793049 workType "article" @default.