Moby-Dick looms large - gargantuan in size, themes, symbols, and influence. Its deep dives, comedic interludes, adventurous journey, and surface effects demand a new approach. Instead of a traditional academic analysis, Dive Deeper grapples in novel fashion with this classic work. For each of the originals 135 chapters (along with Etymology, Extracts, and Epilogue), Dive Deeper has a corresponding brief chapter relating to themes and issues in the original. This permits Dive Deeper to follow the flow of the original and to bring forth new appreciation for the novel, its characters, and its readers. At once creative and informative, Dive Deeper captures the up and down history of the novel, from its original reception to its resurrection in the 1890s, to its ecoming the central work in the canon of American literature in the 1930s. Great books such as Moby-Dick live outside the confines of libraries. They occupy a central place in popular culture. Thus, Dive Deeper tracks the novel as it appears in various motion pictures (more than five major ones to date), comic routines and jokes, paintings, novels, songs (from rock to classical to rap), and in other cultural forms. In the process, Dive Deeper charts how, and why, this novel about a whale and its pursuer has captivated generations of American readers. And why it continues to do so today. Dive Deeper, then, is a creative and original way of approaching a great novel. Readers will gain information and a deeper understanding of an American classic and its place in popular culture.

About the Author
George Cotkin is the author of William James, Public Philosopher (University of Illinois Press, 1994); Reluctant Modernism: American Thought and Culture (Twayne, 1992), Existential America (Hopkins, 2003) and, Morality's Muddy Waters: Ethical Quandaries in Modern America (University of Pennsylvania 2010)

Reviews
Dive Deeper is a pleasure to read and the truest portrait of Moby-Dick in American life and letters yet produced. David Dowling, author of Chasing the White Whale: The Moby-Dick Marathon; or What Melville Means Today [An] entertaining companion to Moby-Dick. The book works so well because it is both seriouse and seriously entertaining ... this new companion is as affable as it is smart. The Boston Globe



Book Information
ISBN 9780199855735
Author George Cotkin
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 612g
Dimensions(mm) 159mm * 241mm * 16mm