Showing results by author "Herman Melville" in All Categories

Initially dismissed as "a dead failure" and "a bad book," and declined by Melville's British publisher, "Pierre" has since struck critics as modern in its psychological probings and literary technique fit, as Carl Van Vechten said in 1922, to be ranked with "The Golden Bowl", "Women in Love", and "Ulysses". None of Melville's other "secondary" works has so regularly been acknowledged by its most thorough critics as a work of genuine grandeur, however flawed.

The action is set within the claustrophobic confines of a British man-of-war ship in the summer of 1797. Here live the crew of the HMS Indomitable, many of them pressed into service against their will.

Billy Budd, however, enjoys naval life. But the evil master-at-arms, Claggart, loathes his fresh-faced innocence and accuses him of mutiny. From this false charge springs a naval tragedy.

The book revolves around the hunt for the giant white sperm whale called Moby Dick. During the previous hunt, captain Ahab had his leg bitten off at the knee. He is determined to catch Moby Dick this time. The book is sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest for Moby Dick.

Herman Melville’s classic masterpiece tells the story of the wandering sailor Ishmael and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby Dick, a white sperm whale of tremendous size and ferocity. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg, and Ahab intends to take revenge. The first line—"Call me Ishmael"—is one of the most famous opening lines in American literature.

After spending the summer of 1853 in the Berkshire Mountains, where he supposedly had a real life encounter with a lightning-rod salesman, Melville published "The Lightning-Rod Man". At the end of this short story, the lightning-rod salesman is exposed for the fraud that he is. However, that will not keep his successors from fanning out to the Middle West, where lightning storms abound and farmers are gullible.

"The Encantadas" or "Enchanted Isles" is a novella by American author Herman Melville. First published in Putnam's Magazine in 1854, it consists of ten philosophical "Sketches" on the Encantadas, or Galápagos Islands. It was collected in "The Piazza Tales" in 1856. "The Encantadas" was a success with the critics, but it did not help Melville out of his financial troubles.

L'incredibile avventura del Capitano Ahab e di "Moby Dick", la grande balena bianca, in lingua inglese! Una collana di Classici della letteratura in lingua originale, per giovani desiderosi di imparare una nuova lingua, in forma ridotta per renderli più facili. Pubblicati come audiolibri per permettere di apprendere in modo ancora più semplice la pronuncia delle parole.

Así comienza esta famosa obra que narra la travesía del barco ballenero Pequod, comandado por el capitán Ahab, junto a Ismael - quien narra la historia- y el arponero Quiqueg, en la mítica persecución de la gran ballena blanca. La venganza, la locura, la lucha contra el destino, y la arrolladora fuerza de la naturaleza, son los temas principales de esta novela de aventuras que relata la lucha del capitán Ahab y su terrible obsesión por vengarse de la enorme ballena que lo privó de su pierna.

The collision of good and evil in this magnifcent novella is brilliantly depicted when an honorable young sailor is tried for unwittingly killing his cruel master-at-arms. In this, his last work, Melville explores the conflict between social authority and individual freedom, justice, and abstract good.

Ahab is the captain of a whaling ship named the Pequod. His great obsession with the giant whale, Moby Dick, makes him embark on a dangerous voyage. Some years before, the captain lost his leg because of the whale and now Ahab’s main desire is to take his revenge on the whale by killing it. He is so obsessed, that Ahab is ready to sacrifice everything he has, including the Pequod and all the members of his crew, and even his own life.

When Herman Melville finished Moby Dick, he wrote a letter to his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne and said: "I have written a wicked book and feel spotless as the lamb." Unfortunately, very few people actually finish reading this 'wicked' book. One early critic said: "Melville's book can sink a ship with greater force than any whale that I know of." Moby Dick, as originally written, is just plain heavy, difficult to read from cover to cover.

"Billy è l'ultimo. E Billy Budd è una parabola. In questo discorso in forma di racconto (che, come è noto, fu redatto tra il 1886-1888 e il 1891, anno della morte dell'autore, e uscì nella prima edizione soltanto nel 1924) infatti Billy dà vita alla figura angelicata di colui che sempre e comunque subisce e subirà il torto, l'ingiustizia, la prepotenza, l'illegalità (per dirla melvillianamente, le mire del maligno su questa terra).

The selections in this collection include classic short stories "Bartelby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville, "The Truth About Pyecraft" by H. G. Wells, "The Angel Child" by Stephen Crane, "A Journey" by Edith Wharton, "Phyllis and Rosamond" by Vriginia Woolf, and "The Flight of Betsey Lane" by Sarah Orne Jewett.

Moby-Dick or The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, the work's genre classifications range from late Romantic to early Symbolist. Its reputation as a "Great American Novel" was established only in the 20th century, after the centennial of its author's birth.

Herman Melville was born in New York City on 1st August 1819. His father died when he was 12, leaving the family in very straitened times. Two years later Melville took a job in a bank and followed up with a failed stint as a surveyor. He went to sea and travelled across to Liverpool and then to the Pacific on adventures. Presented here is perhaps his best known short story, ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’, an enduring story of a Wall Street lawyer and his very particular assistant.

Written as an introductory story to The Piazza Tales, the protagonist of The Piazza idealizes a radiant spot on the mountain that he looks upon from his piazza. Traveling to the spot he realizes it is a house, occupied by the unhappy girl Marianna, who longs to see the lucky individual who lives in the white house she looks upon from her window. The narrator realizes he has been the object of a fantasy like his own, and leaves thinking how all idealism is an illusion.

Durante una travesia maritima, un grupo de esclavos negros se rebelan para obligar a que sean llevados de nuevo a su hogar africano. Esta es la base argumental de la novela, que forma parte de una antologia llamada Cuentos de la plaza que tienen en comun la descripcion de personas que viven por fuera de la sociedad.

"The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles" is a novella by American author Herman Melville. First published in Putnam's Magazine in 1854, it consists of ten philosophical "Sketches" on the Encantadas, or Galápagos Islands. It was collected in The Piazza Tales in 1856. The Encantadas was a success with the critics, and contained some of Melville's "most memorable prose". An anonymous narrator unites the ten disparate "Sketches", each of which begin with a few lines of poetry, mostly taken from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.

Moby Dick est le nom d'un cachalot que le capitaine Achab traque depuis toujours sur son baleinier le Péquod. Tous les marins présents dans le bateau de chasse ont une histoire, que nous raconte le héros, Ismaël. La traversée en mer devient une épopée pour tous ces hommes, en quête d'aventures !

La lucha de un hombre obstinado contra una ballena Moby Dick es considerado por la critica como una de las novelas mas importantes de la literatura universal ya que aunque aparentemente es la simple historia de un marinero obsesionado por cazar una elusiva ballena, es un inmenso poema lirico que tiene como fondo el ansia de triunfo de todo ser humano.