Prerequisites: upper- division standing or lower-division English course (other than composition) or consent of instructor
Description: Discusses Herman Melville’s 1851 novel in light of authors and events that influenced Melville, from Shakespeare and Carl Von Linne to George Walker’s Three Spaniards and Owen Chase’s The Wreck of the Essex. Examines pre-Civil War U. S. culture through the eyes of its foremost literary scholar.