1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910817663003321

Autore

Berger Jason <1976->

Titolo

Antebellum at sea : maritime fantasies in nineteenth-century America / / Jason Berger

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Minneapolis, : University of Minnesota Press, c2012

ISBN

1-4529-4784-8

0-8166-8175-9

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (328 p.)

Disciplina

810.9/32

Soggetti

Sea stories, American - History and criticism

American literature - 19th century - History and criticism

Seafaring life in literature

National characteristics, American, in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: Bewitching sea -- Fantasies of the common sailor; or, enjoying the knowing Jack Tar -- Tarrying with the national: fantasizing the subject of state -- Tattoos in Typee: rethinking Melville's "cultural grotesque" -- Melville's porno-tropics: re-sexuating pacific encounters -- The crater and the master's reign: Cooper's "floating imperium" -- The sublime abject of democracy: Melville's "floating imperium" -- Epilogue: Incomplete sea.

Sommario/riassunto

In the antebellum years, the Western world's symbolic realities were expanded and challenged as merchant, military, and scientific activity moved into Pacific and Arctic waters. In Antebellum at Sea, Jason Berger explores the roles that early nineteenth-century maritime narratives played in conceptualizing economic and social transitions in the developing global market system and what these chronicles disclose about an era marked by immense change.Focusing on the work of James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville, Berger enhances our understanding of how the nineteenth cen