Ebook464 pages7 hours
The View from the Masthead: Maritime Imagination and Antebellum American Sea Narratives
By Hester Blum
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
About this ebook
With long, solitary periods at sea, far from literary and cultural centers, sailors comprise a remarkable population of readers and writers. Although their contributions have been little recognized in literary history, seamen were important figures in the nineteenth-century American literary sphere. In the first book to explore their unique contribution to literary culture, Hester Blum examines the first-person narratives of working sailors, from little-known sea tales to more famous works by Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, and Richard Henry Dana.
In their narratives, sailors wrote about how their working lives coexisted with--indeed, mutually drove--their imaginative lives. Even at leisure, they were always on the job site. Blum analyzes seamen's libraries, Barbary captivity narratives, naval memoirs, writings about the Galapagos Islands, Melville's sea vision, and the crisis of death and burial at sea. She argues that the extent of sailors' literacy and the range of their reading were unusual for a laboring class, belying the popular image of Jack Tar as merely a swaggering, profane, or marginal figure. As Blum demonstrates, seamen's narratives propose a method for aligning labor and contemplation that has broader applications for the study of American literature and history.
In their narratives, sailors wrote about how their working lives coexisted with--indeed, mutually drove--their imaginative lives. Even at leisure, they were always on the job site. Blum analyzes seamen's libraries, Barbary captivity narratives, naval memoirs, writings about the Galapagos Islands, Melville's sea vision, and the crisis of death and burial at sea. She argues that the extent of sailors' literacy and the range of their reading were unusual for a laboring class, belying the popular image of Jack Tar as merely a swaggering, profane, or marginal figure. As Blum demonstrates, seamen's narratives propose a method for aligning labor and contemplation that has broader applications for the study of American literature and history.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 1, 2012
ISBN9781469606552
Author
Hester Blum
Hester Blum is associate professor of English at Pennsylvania State University.
Related to The View from the Masthead
Related ebooks
Origin of the wolf ritual: The whaling indians: West Coast legends and stories — Part 12 of the Sapir-Thomas Nootka texts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Whale and His Captors; or, The Whaleman's Adventures Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sailor in the Desert: The Adventures of Philip Gunn, DSM, RN in the Mesopotamia Campaign, 1915 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Whale Hunters of the West Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJoycean Possibilities: A Margot Norris Legacy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Missing: Tales of those who never came home. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe South Wales Miners: 1964-1985 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVinnie Ream: An American Sculptor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack Tar and the Baboon Watch: A Guide to Curious Nautical Knowledge for Landlubbers and Sea Lawyers Alike Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe End of the Tether Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Omoo by Herman Melville - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Flood Year 1927: A Cultural History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Figure in the Carpet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSheila Watson: Essays on Her Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWeird Tales from Northern Seas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCold War Modernists: Art, Literature, and American Cultural Diplomacy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpenser and Virgil: The pastoral poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHenry James Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrederick Douglass and Herman Melville: Essays in Relation Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tales of unrest: Karain, A Memory - The Idiots - An Outpost Of Progress - The Return - The Lagoon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGenoa: A Telling of Wonders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wreck of the Neva: The Horrifying Fate of a Convict Ship and the Women Aboard Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMichael Kohlhaas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trafalgar Chronicle: New Series 4: Dedicated to Naval History in the Nelson Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Literary Naturalism: Late Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnimals and Other People: Literary Forms and Living Beings in the Long Eighteenth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Wordsworth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Arctic Cinemas and the Documentary Ethos Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Criticism For You
Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Thorns and Roses: A Novel by Sarah J. Maas | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Between the World and Me: by Ta-Nehisi Coates | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speed Reading: How to Read a Book a Day - Simple Tricks to Explode Your Reading Speed and Comprehension Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Power of Habit: by Charles Duhigg | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5One Hundred Years of Solitude: A Novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The View from the Masthead
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The View from the Masthead - Hester Blum
/e book_preview_excerpt.html }rW寄2KJX1EP Ѫfq3ffx ZU}bz7VڪD_2~}D.q~ݏקgWu~|%9~Y^?tmW5˳۳wKӷo?/O/N/ROO/c0/WWg(*.]^.N/߽/OO^?}[>{6|?O=zV\}}S}.ʼnںj\}~u\EWC_ǾKWF;./rW~(x7W|6oFP55ҕ}A7_W|o|W.{$yw_=xPp͑gϾo#Wwgq_WtqXeFOblxY 9rDKױO偮ۮPs(Kٌf%_,_oݼ?~X/?^2Qʰ{H6ᯞ5A;םPYﯞ<{>W/OȢ,'OWn'O}(b+* #v[Hmޙ|sz6jrhZ+'JTOų
&V
o-"D*i}}TӬ(jP5jNDzd!86@IqQBVq>zR|t-ޛ}Mᅴ^4ۙjnS\m&[Hn,F|X/~5IqQvǰ
phK7k"Q~/bZf<'>
Z0l+ӆf6Jw|2S"ݮO}GVFϦ\^}[Ḟ{){ws©יּe ZfQoDL~'xnx+./eN֕__> 5'h
^xz\8FhFZ^trOxo'*)lZ'~e/`:HW,YfdƉ ?Us}-!]v`\AZO0D/Rl0۹ ×Uy3rT|XFRTvM{kLc-Ʊu3~!33A!E֮ O)Hdѹ#Fd_W.*TF?WáOӕԥ(Ɩ=1IpXNn>E"a'SJDYX@el\Ɖ&B=r2$,@`:LRpHm?8GeHܶ* )R$sWRby*"~TvKXL p-+?gU-K/}%>J<s;w"a-/ZGq̸i:'2勳F:ϼ&]Cg
/'քx\Nhq ٤E²Vcih<"!s0巯]wdx2ܤC}*TC71Ѳ|oZ'd
gśj#bSʑJe?ۼxc8z^w2w}yӆ|ʷѮ:]7Z