This week’s
question was when did Moby Dick begin to gain a reputation as a
masterpiece? To quote from our
reference source:Moby Dick had some initial critical appreciation, particularly in Britain, but only since the 1920s has it been recognized as a masterpiece, an epic tragedy of tremendous dramatic power and narrative drive.
The article had a
number of other interesting points to make, including:
Both Ahab and Ishmael seek knowledge, but while Ishmael learns love and humanity ”monomaniacal Ahab” pursues a demonic God behind the “hooded phantom” or “unreasoning mask” of the symbolic whale.
The question (& answer)
were taken from pgs 667-668 of The Oxford Companion to English Literature edited by Margaret Drabble. The book was published by the Oxford
University Press in 1995.
