Melville and Repose

"Bryant offers unique and ground-breaking readings of Melville's work....Thorough research into American culture and recent Melville manuscript findings, an engaging style, and full, scholarly readings combine to make this historicist study a welcome addition to the libraries of Americanists and Melville scholars and enthusiasts."--American Renaissance Literary Report "Written in a lively and engaging style but incorporating an impressive degree of scholarly research, not only into the corpus of Melville scholarship but also the history and culture of the Renaissance, Melville and Repose is a major contribution to thought about the nature of America's first literary flowering."--American Studies "Thoughtful inquirers into pre-Civil War American humor will need to read this book, which also bears on the 1840-1890 period not mentioned."--To Wit "This is overall a rich and engaging analysis."--American Literature "...the book informs, provokes, and satisfies, and not just because it reveals much about Melville and about American comic literature. It also provides a model of critical practive...that moves easily through the most minute of concrete detail but never loses sight of larger critical and theoretical concerns. It sustains the kind of intellectual balance that Melville himself sought in an elegant, but tense, repose that reflects the deep thought of laughter."--Nineteenth Century Literature "Bryant offers unique and ground-breaking readings of Melville's work....Thorough research into American culture and recent Melville manuscript findings, an engaging style, and full, scholarly readings combine to make this historicist study a welcome addition to the libraries of Americanists and Melville scholars and enthusiasts."--American Renaissance Literary Report "Written in a lively and engaging style but incorporating an impressive degree of scholarly research, not only into the corpus of Melville scholarship but also the history and culture of the Renaissance, Melville and Repose is a major contribution to thought about the nature of America's first literary flowering."--American Studies "Thoughtful inquirers into pre-Civil War American humor will need to read this book, which also bears on the 1840-1890 period not mentioned."--To Wit "This is overall a rich and engaging analysis."--American Literature "...the book informs, provokes, and satisfies, and not just because it reveals much about Melville and about American comic literature. It also provides a model of critical practice...that moves easily through the most minute of concrete detail but never loses sight of larger critical and theoretical concerns. It sustains the kind of intellectual balance that Melville himself sought in an elegant, but tense, repose that reflects the deep thought of laughter."--Nineteenth Century Literature