University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
"Neither Believer nor Infidel" Dialogic Portraits of Agnostic and Pragmatic Methodologies in Moby-Dick and Clarel
Abstract
dc:description.abstractMuch scholarship is dedicated to Melville’s religious themes, and other scholarship carefully analyzes the innovative formal techniques used by Melville, such as biblical allusion, digressive essays, and philosophical musings imbedded in fiction. However, religious analysis often turns to biographical interpretations of Melville’s own beliefs, and formal analysis tends to highlight Melville’s idiosyncrasies rather than determine their function. This thesis uses the Bakhtinian concepts of dialogism and polyphony to show that Melville’s poetic techniques create open texts, allowing readers to freely engage with multiple religious views that are equally valid, though not equally beneficial. Anticipating the methodologies of agnosticism and pragmatism, Moby-Dick exemplifies an attitude of cheerful agnosticism, whereas Melville’s final major work, Clarel, exemplifies the frustrations of uncertainty. A primarily formal analysis allows scholars to view Melville both conforming and breaking out of expected religious attitudes in the nineteenth-century, without considering Melville a prophet of twentieth-century literary attitudes.
Degree
thesis:*- Grantor dc:publisher
- University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
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- Overos, Matthias
- Contributors dc:contributor
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- Wakefield, Hannah
- Palmer, Heather; Guy, Matthew
- College of Arts and Sciences
Subjects
dc:subject × 4Rights
dc:rights- Language dc:language
- English, eng
Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Repository record dc:identifier
- https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/700
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-1858