Pierre, Or The Ambiguities: Volume Seven, Scholarly Edition"Ambiguities indeed! One long brain-muddling, soulbewildering ambiguity (to borrow Mr. Melville's style), like Melchisedeck without beginning or end - a labyrinth without a clue - an Irish bog without so much as a Jack o' th'-lantern to guide the wanderer's footsteps - the dream of a distempered stomach, disordered by a hasty supper on half-cooked pork chops". So judged the New York Herald when Pierre was first published in 1852, with most contemporary reviewers joining in the general condemnation: "a dead failure", "this crazy rigmarole", and "a literary mare's nest". Latter-day critics have recognized in the story of Melville's idealistic young hero a corrosive satire of the sentimental-Gothic novel, and a revolutionary foray into modernist literary techniques. As William Spengemann writes in his introduction to this edition, "For anyone who, being aware of the culture of modernity, is curious about its origins, Pierre ranks with Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner, ' Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, and the poems of Emily Dickinson as one of the privileged places where the dead past can be seen giving way inexorably to the living present". |
Contents
Book I Pierre Just Emerging from His Teens | 3 |
Book II Love Delight and Alarm | 21 |
Book III The Presentiment and the Verification | 43 |
Book IV Retrospective | 67 |
Book V Misgivings and Preparatives | 86 |
Book VI Isabel and the First Part of the Story of Isabel | 109 |
Book VII Intermediate between Pierres Two Interviews with Isabel at the Farmhouse | 128 |
Book VIII The Second Interview and the Second Part of the Story of Isabel Their Immediate Impulsive Effect upon Pierre | 143 |
Book XV The Cousins | 216 |
Book XVI First Night of Their Arrival in the City | 229 |
Book XVII Young America in Literature | 244 |
Book XVIII Pierre as a Juvenile Author Reconsidered | 257 |
Book XIX The Church of the Apostles | 265 |
Book XX Charlie Millthorpe | 275 |
Book XXI Pierre Immaturely Attempts a Mature Book Tidings from the Meadows Plinlimmon | 282 |
Book XXII The FlowerCurtain Lifted from before a Tropical Author with Some Remarks on the Transcendental FleshBrush Phil | 295 |
Book IX More Light and the Gloom of That Light More Gloom and the Light of That Gloom | 165 |
Book X The Unprecedented Final Resolution of Pierre | 172 |
Book XI He Crosses the Rubicon | 182 |
Book XII Isabel Mrs Glendinning the Portrait and Lucy | 188 |
Book XIII They Depart the Meadows | 201 |
Book XIV The Journey and the Pamphlet | 204 |
Book XXIII A Letter for Pierre Isabel Arrival of Lucys Easel and Trunks at the Apostles | 307 |
Book XXIV Lucy at the Apostles | 322 |
Book XXV Lucy Isabel and Pierre Pierre at His Book Enceladus | 330 |
Book XXVI A Walk a Foreign Portrait a Sail And the End | 348 |
EDITORIAL APPENDIX | 363 |
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Common terms and phrases
ambiguous Apostles aunt beautiful brother called Carl Van Vechten chamber chronometrical conceit Confidence-Man copy-text cousin Ralph cried Pierre dark Delly door E. L. Grant Watson edition emendations Enceladus entirely eternal eyes F. O. Matthiessen face Falsgrave fancy Fate father feel felt gazed girl Glen grief guitar hand hath heart heaven heavenly Hendricks House Herman Melville hour human infinite Isabel knew lady letter light literary little Pierre look Lucy Tartan Lucy's manorial Melville's Memnon Millthorpe mind Moby-Dick morning mother mysterious mystic never night Omoo once Pierre Glendinning Pierre's Plinlimmon Plotinus portrait possible present Review round Saddle Meadows secret seemed silent sister sort soul Southern Literary Messenger speak stood story strange suddenly sweet tell thee thing thou art thou hast thought truth turned Ulver Whig wholly wonderful word write young youth