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Melville and the visual arts : Ionian form, Venetian tint

Author: Douglas Robillard
Publisher: Kent, Ohio : Kent State University Press, ©1997.
Edition/Format:   Book : State or province government publication : English
Summary:
Throughout his professional life, Herman Melville displayed a keen interested in the visual arts. He alluded to works of art to embellish his poems and novels and made substantial use of the technique of ekphrasis, the literary description of works by visual arts, to give body to plot and character. In carefully tracing Melville's use of the art analogy as a literary technique, Douglas Robillard shows how Melville  Read more...
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Details

Genre/Form: Art
Additional Physical Format: Online version:
Robillard, Douglas, 1928-
Melville and the visual arts.
Kent, Ohio : Kent State University Press, c1997
(OCoLC)605174618
Named Person: Herman Melville; Herman Melville
Material Type: Government publication, State or province government publication
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Douglas Robillard
ISBN: 0873385756 9780873385756
OCLC Number: 36548853
Description: xviii, 205 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Contents: The sister arts : "I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas" --
The arts observed : "old blurred, bewrinkled mezzotint" --
Redburn : "mythological oil-paintings" --
Moby-Dick : "less erroneous pictures" --
Pierre : "a stranger's head by an unknown hand" --
Clarel : "dwell on those etchings in the night" --
The visual imagination : "wanderings after the picturesque".
Responsibility: Douglas Robillard.

Abstract:

Throughout his professional life, Herman Melville displayed a keen interested in the visual arts. He alluded to works of art to embellish his poems and novels and made substantial use of the technique of ekphrasis, the literary description of works by visual arts, to give body to plot and character. In carefully tracing Melville's use of the art analogy as a literary technique, Douglas Robillard shows how Melville evolved as a writer. In separate chapters Robillard deals at length with Redburn, Moby-Dick, Pierre, and Clarel. In briefer discussions he looks at the Piazza Tales and the shorter poems. His extensive history of what Melville saw, responded to, and valued offers new insights into Melville's creative processes.

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