Product Description: In "The Fortress of American Solitude: Robinson Crusoe and Antebellum Culture", Shawn Thomson analyzes a wide range of antebellum literature offering critiques of the Robinson Crusoe story and its attendant myths. Through the lens of the Crusoe topos, Thomson explores the underlying tensions within bourgeois culture between the restraints of the home and freedoms of the open world...read more

Product Description: This study explores the intersection of vertical and horizontal elements- the vertical ascension of Ahab's drama and Ishmael's horizontal integration of feeling, thought, and experience. This study builds upon traditional approaches as well as allowing science, geography, and aesthetic theory to broaden the understanding of Melville's art...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)