Melville and the Idea of Blackness: Race and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century America (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Series Number 164) Heartdrum a man with a history

a man with a history of standing up to autocratic presidents

and well-versed in Western ways

Literary Studies

and poetic style

Melville and the Idea of Blackness: Race and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century America (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Series Number 164) Heartdrum a man with a historyBy examining the unique problems that blackness signifies in Moby Dick, Pierre, Benito Cereno," and "The Encantadas," Christopher Freeburg analyzes how Herman Melville grapples with the social realities of racial difference in nineteenth century America. Where Melville's critics typically read blackness as either a metaphor for the haunting power of slavery or an allegory of moral evil, Freeburg asserts that blackness functions as the site where