Call Me Ishmael

First published in 1947, this acknowledged classic of American literary criticism explores the influences--especially Shakespearean ones--on Melville's writing of "Moby-Dick." One of the first Melvilleans to advance what has since become known as the "theory of the two "Moby-Dicks,"" Olson argues that there were two versions of "Moby-Dick," and that Melville's reading "King Lear" for the first time in between the first and second versions of the book had a profound impact on his conception of the saga: "the first book did not contain Ahab," writes Olson, and "it may not, except incidentally, have contained Moby-Dick." If literary critics and reviewers at the time responded with varying degrees of skepticism to the "theory of the two "Moby-Dick"s," it was the experimental style and organization of the book that generated the most controversy.