Herman Melville: between Charlemagne and the antemosaic cosmic man - Loren Goldner

The 1848-1850 conjuncture in the Atlantic world witnessed the birth of communism (Marx), modern art (Courbet, Flaubert), the end of classical political economy, and the formulation of the entropy law, or Second Law of Thermodynamics. Their simultaneity was not accidental, and Melville's work echoes each of them. This study attempts to situate Melville's works in this convergence.

Submitted by Craftwork on January 28, 2018

Class Struggle and the Adamic Imagination in Herman Melville: In Europe, after 1848, bourgeois consciousness in revolt sought a new universal in the working class but soon found itself in the orbit of the state civil service; in America, bourgeois consciousness in revolt found a new universal in what Melville called "antemosaic" reality, Queequeg, embodied in the multiracial working class, the "Anacharsis Cloots deputation," in radical antithesis to the state. Herman Melville (1818-1891) came to this perspective in the feverish production of six novels of the sea, culminating in Moby Dick, in the 1846-1851 period. As the whaling ship Pequod was destroyed by Moby Dick, the Indian harpooner Tashtego nailed a red flag to the mast, also catching the wing of a sky-hawk, with its "imperial beak." The 1848-1850 conjuncture in the Atlantic world witnessed the birth of communism (Marx), modern art (Courbet, Flaubert), the end of classical political economy, and the formulation of the entropy law, or Second Law of Thermodynamics. Their simultaneity was not accidental, and Melville's work echoes each of them. 1848, in Europe, had been the year of the eruption of "the dangerous classes"; in America, it marked the end of interclassist Jeffersonian-Jacksonian populism, over the slavery issue. The link between communism, modernism, neoclassical economics and the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the beginning of the "dissolution of the object" in the "dream worlds" of a new mass consumption. This study attempts to situate Melville's works in this convergence.

Files

Comments

Reddebrek

5 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Reddebrek on October 22, 2018

The 1848-1850 conjuncture in the Atlantic world witnessed the birth of communism (Marx),

???
Are you copying publisher blurbs for these introductions? I ask because aside from the tones usually coming across as salespitchy they often contain really lazy and inaccurate generalisations like this. Communism pre-dates 1848 by some years even if you exclude the usual cited examples of potential proto Communists like the Conspiracy of Equals, and stick with openly using the C word Communists. Hell Marx himself was active in the Communist movement before 1848.

Like seriously if this is an accurate reflection on the thesis then its deeply flawed, otherwise its quite misleading.

Craftwork

5 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on October 22, 2018

Reddebrek

The 1848-1850 conjuncture in the Atlantic world witnessed the birth of communism (Marx),

???
Are you copying publisher blurbs for these introductions? I ask because aside from the tones usually coming across as salespitchy they often contain really lazy and inaccurate generalisations like this. Communism pre-dates 1848 by some years even if you exclude the usual cited examples of potential proto Communists like the Conspiracy of Equals, and stick with openly using the C word Communists. Hell Marx himself was active in the Communist movement before 1848.

Like seriously if this is an accurate reflection on the thesis then its deeply flawed, otherwise its quite misleading.

I just use the blurbs.

Hieronymous

5 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Hieronymous on October 23, 2018

Craftwork

Reddebrek

The 1848-1850 conjuncture in the Atlantic world witnessed the birth of communism (Marx),

???
Are you copying publisher blurbs for these introductions? I ask because aside from the tones usually coming across as salespitchy they often contain really lazy and inaccurate generalisations like this. Communism pre-dates 1848 by some years even if you exclude the usual cited examples of potential proto Communists like the Conspiracy of Equals, and stick with openly using the C word Communists. Hell Marx himself was active in the Communist movement before 1848.

Like seriously if this is an accurate reflection on the thesis then its deeply flawed, otherwise its quite misleading.

I just use the blurbs.

How much of the book did you read?