Moby Dick
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Moby-Dick (1851) by Herman Melville, the story of Ahab and the white whale, the most popular of around 1,000 ideas that listeners submitted.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Herman Melville's (1819-1891) epic novel, published in London in 1851, the story of Captain Ahab's pursuit of a great white sperm whale that had bitten off his leg. He risks his own life and that of his crew on the Pequod, single-mindedly seeking his revenge, his story narrated by Ishmael who was taking part in a whaling expedition for the first time. This is one of the c1000 ideas which listeners sent in this autumn for our fourth Listener Week, following Kafka's The Trial in 2014, Captain Cook in 2015 and Garibaldi and the Risorgimento in 2016.
With
Bridget Bennett
Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Leeds
Katie McGettigan
Lecturer in American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London
And
Graham Thompson
Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Nottingham
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Last on
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
Katie McGettigan at Royal Holloway, University of London
Bridget Bennett at the University of LeedsGraham Thompson at the University of Nottingham
Herman Melville at the Society Library – The New York Society Library
Melville Society Cultural Project – New Bedford Whaling Museum
White whale in the big smoke: How the geography of London inspired Moby-Dick – New Statesman
Jay Parini on Herman Melville – The Telegraph
Moby-Dick – Wikipedia
READING LIST:
Lawrence Buell, The Dream of the Great American Novel (Harvard University Press, 2016)
George Cotkin, Dive Deeper: Journeys with Moby-Dick (Oxford University Press, 2012)
Andrew Delbanco, Melville: His World and Work (Picador, 2006)
Philip Hoare, Leviathan, or the Whale (Fourth Estate, 2009)
C. L. R. James, Mariners, Renegades and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live in (first published 1953; Dartmouth College Press, 2001)
Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Verso, 2002)
Katie McGettigan, Herman Melville: Modernity and the Material Text (University of New Hampshire Press, 2017)
Jay Parini, The Passages of Herman Melville (Canongate Books, 2012)
Hershel Parker, Herman Melville: A Biography 2 Volumes (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002, 2005)
Eyal Peretz, Literature, Disaster and the Enigma of Power: A Reading of Moby-Dick (Stanford University Press, 2003)
Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Incredible True Story that Inspired Moby-Dick (William Collins, 2015)
Nathaniel Philbrick, Why Read Moby-Dick? (Penguin Books, 2011)
Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Presenter | Melvyn Bragg |
| Interviewed Guest | Bridget Bennett |
| Interviewed Guest | Katie McGettigan |
| Interviewed Guest | Graham Thompson |
| Producer | Simon Tillotson |
Broadcasts
- Thu 7 Dec 2017 09:00BBC Radio 4
- Thu 7 Dec 2017 21:30BBC Radio 4
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