18 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2016
    1. You can listen while you are walking around. You can listen while driving. You can listen while applying makeup. You can listen while you are cooking. You can listen while you are in the dentist's chair.

      Multitasking, a gift

    1. Medieval marginalia is so well-known that amusing or disconcerting instances of it are fodder for viral aggregators such as Buzzfeed and Brainpickings, and the fascination with other readers’ reading is manifest in sites such as Melville’s Marginalia Online or Harvard’s online exhibit of marginalia from six personal libraries

      Collection of text and materials, a library is always cool

    1. They recalled the fresh young image of the Handsome Sailor, that face never deformed by a sneer or subtler vile freak of the heart within

      Billy Budd, the good kid

    1. towards the ocean with me

      Setting is the ocean, we must be on a boat

    2. Call me Ishmael

      Main Character

    1. magnifying glass
    2. Noting trends in word frequencies, however, provides us with a simplified view of the text. The computer’s ability to sort and illustrate quantified data helps identify patterns, but understanding why a pattern occurs and determining whether it is one that offers insight into a text requires technologies of self-reflective inquiry.

      repetition such as refrains repeat and echo themes. It does give us a simplified way of reading.

  2. Apr 2016
    1. Claggart with no origin and no background. “What?” you say. That’s right, it’s not very clear.

      Claggart is a unusual name indeed, it stands out from the rest of the story. The name is pretty cacophonous and well it's never used before and probably will never be given the association given by Melville

      http://goo.gl/oxGvuF(need Jstor access)

    1. To begin, I think to write yet another story of my nostalgic sailing days past

      A lot Melville's background here

      https://goo.gl/bgJAHV

    2. t shall be on a warship, H.M.S. Bellipotent, 1797

      the actual warship was found, it's very impressive of a discovery. Looks like Melville is very much alive.

      http://articles.latimes.com/1987-11-11/news/mn-13566_1_somers

  3. Mar 2016
    1. “Canton.” “And there, Señor, you exchanged your sealskins for teas and silks, I think you said?” “Yes, Silks, mostly.” “And the balance you took in specie, perhaps?”

      Trade system with China very popular at this time, 17th century, as spices, silk and other goods were very precious to Westerners. Delano is a prominent figure in trade systems with China(Hughes, 3) and noticed a lot of cultural differences, foot binding for example but also fails to notice human conditions, which Melville linked to slave revolt.

      http://www.thepeacefulsea.com/canton-system.html https://drewarchives.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/henryhughespaper.pdf

    2. The Spaniard’s manner, too, conveyed a sort of sour and gloomy disdain, which he seemed at no pains to disguise. But this the American in charity ascribed to the harassing effects of sickness, since, in former instances, he had noted that there are peculiar natures on whom prolonged physical suffering seems to cancel every social instinct of kindness; as if, forced to black bread themselves, they deemed it but equity that each person coming nigh them should, indirectly, by some slight or affront, be made to partake of their fare.

      Diseases were poorly understood. They still held the notion that it has to do something with atmosphere or spirits (four temperaments). The observations are not wrong but such theories are. This is interesting as observations lead to misunderstood conclusions. Seeing as how Delano can observe behavior of the sick but not of what would be coming. Melville adds on to this temperament sentiment: "using Delano's trusting disposition and generosity. There is a lot of disposition and feelings towards slavery in general. Philanthropic abolition to ardent favored practice of it.

      https://goo.gl/bgJAHV

    3. Upon gaining a less remote view, the ship, when made signally visible on the verge of the leaden-hued swells, with the shreds of fog here and there raggedly furring her, appeared like a white-washed monastery after a thunder-storm, seen perched upon some dun cliff among the Pyrenees.

      It appears that there were many storms, namely hurricanes, during this time that Melville simplified. Storms were problematic since sailors and explorers had little technology to forecast weathers and sail safely. Melville used this to explore the theme of seeing and unseeing as you cannot forecast ahead what might happen. Fog and storms also limit distance of vision and no instrument, telescope or binoculars can help. The is mention of Saint Dominick the ship that sailed during Haitian revolution. So the writer explores that the ship is a reference to either events during those times. All in all, this would be reference and connection to chaos, hazards and displacement. Gales and Black violence displace each other but Melville makes it so that they happen simultaneously. It is said that "The ship was driven with ill intent," which most people would agree to slavery.

      (pp 445-451) http://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1314&context=fac_journ

  4. Feb 2016
    1. Nevertheless, I recognize that much of what provoked me to turn to literature in the first place—vital, daring, and meditative expressions of human experience—is there. It is there in the naked lyric of a blog post celebrating or mourning some personal or public event.

      literature attempts to describe human experience. However, it appears as though everything becomes either based on life(celebratory or suffering) or death(tragic or honorable)