Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T15:15:42.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rewriting Moby-Dick: Politics, Textual Identity, and the Revision Narrative

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

John Bryant
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The study of textual evolution, or revision as a textual phenomenon, requires a form of fluid-text editing that not only gives readers access to the textual identities that constitute the versions of a work but also makes the revision process witnessable by generating revision sequences and revision narratives for every revision event. Traditional editorial approaches that mix versions in the editing of a work compromise the integrity of textual identities, and the problem of mixing versions is demonstrated in three examples of the way editors and critics (in the context of orientalist and colonialist discourses) have changed the text of, or rewritten, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: Edward Said's mistaking John Huston and Ray Bradbury's film ending for Melville's, the British expurgations that modulate Queequeg's homosexuality to preclude the idea of homosexual domesticity and marriage, and the British editors' conversion of Queequeg's Christianity (and modern editors' perpetuation of the unwanted conversion). These historical and modern cases show that readers, sometimes despite themselves, revise texts materially in ways that mirror their desire and the ways of power. Editing the rewriting of a text like Moby-Dick in a digital critical archive would preserve all versions and generate revision narratives that textualize the otherwise invisible dynamics of revision in a culture. With its capacity to edit fluid texts, digital humanities scholarship is well situated to expand the discourse on the dynamics of textual evolution into the literary and cultural criticism of the twenty-first century.

Type
Literary History, Literary Revision, Literary Performance
Information
PMLA , Volume 125 , Issue 4: Special Topic Literary Criticism for the Twenty-First Century , October 2010 , pp. 1043 - 1060
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Ray, Bradbury. Green Shadows, White Whale. New York: Harper, 1992. Print.Google Scholar
Ray, Bradbury. “He Rises.” Interview by Kurt Andersen. Studio 360: American Icons: Moby-Dick. Public Radio Intl.; WNYC New York Public Radio, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.Google Scholar
Ray, Bradbury. “Interview: Ray Bradbury on Adapting Melville's Allegorical Sea Monster, Moby Dick.” By Steve Biodrowski. Cinefantastique. Cinefantastique Online, 2 Mar. 2008. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.Google Scholar
Ray, Bradbury. Moby-Dick: A Screenplay. Burton: Subterranean, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
John, Bryant. The Fluid Text: Editing Revision for Book and Screen. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
John, Bryant, ed. Herman Melville's Typee: A Fluid-Text Edition. Rotunda–U of Virginia P, 2006. Web. 29 Apr. 2010.Google Scholar
John, Bryant. Melville Unfolding: Politics, Sexuality, and the Versions of Typee. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
John, Bryant. “Witness and Access: The Uses of the Fluid Text.” Textual Cultures 2.1 (2007): 16–42. Print.Google Scholar
Eaves, Morris, Essick, Robert, and Viscomi, Joseph, eds. The William Blake Archive. Lib. of Cong.; U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2010. Web. 23 Aug. 2010.Google Scholar
Havelock, Ellis. Sexual Inversion. London: Wilson, 1897. Print.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, Dorothee Metlitsky. Melville's Orienda. New Haven: Yale UP, 1961. Print.Google Scholar
Folsom, ed. “Database as Genre: The Epic Transformation of Archives.” PMLA 122.5 (2007): 1571–79. Print.Google Scholar
Folsom, Ed, and Price, Kenneth M., eds. The Walt Whitman Archive. U of Nebraska, 1995–2008. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabler, Hans Walter. “The Primacy of the Document in Editing.” Ecdotica 4 (2007): 197–207. Print.Google Scholar
Gabler, Hans Walter, Bornstein, George, and Pierce, Gillian Borland, eds. Contemporary German Editorial Theory. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1995. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greetham, D. C. Theories of the Text. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayford, Harrison, Parker, Hershel, and Thomas Tanselle, G., eds. Moby-Dick. By Herman Melville. Evanston: Northwestern UP; Chicago: Newberry Lib., 1988. Print.Google Scholar
Hayles, N. Katherine. “Narrative and Database: Natural Symbionts.” PMLA 122.5 (2007): 1603–08. Print.Google Scholar
Herbert, T. Walter. Marquesan Encounters: Melville and the Meaning of Civilization. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1980. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huston, John, dir. Moby Dick. Warner Brothers, 1956. DVD.Google Scholar
JUXTA. NINES: Nineteenth-Century Scholarship Online. U of Virginia, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.Google Scholar
Leroux, Jean-François. “Wars for Oil: Moby-Dick, Orientalism, and Cold War Criticism.” Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies 11.1 (2009): 19–35. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lev, Manovich. The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT P, 2001. Print.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Inst. for Advanced Technology in the Humanities; NINES, 2000–08. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983. Print.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. “Database, Interface, and Archival Fever.” PMLA 122.5 (2007): 1588–92. Print.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. “The Rationale of Hypertext.” Radiant Textuality: Literature after the World Wide Web. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 53–74. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. The Textual Condition. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991. Print.Google Scholar
McKenzie, D. F. Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts. London: British Lib., 1986. Print.Google Scholar
Herman, Melville. Moby-Dick. Ed. Bryant, John and Springer, Haskell. New York: Pearson, 2006. Print. Longman Critical Ed.Google Scholar
Herman, Melville. “To Nathaniel Hawthorne.” 29 June 1851. Correspondence. Ed. Horth, Lynn C. Evanston: Northwestern UP; Chicago: Newberry Lib., 1993. 194–96. Print.Google Scholar
MLA Committee on Scholarly Editions. “Guidelines for Editors of Scholarly Editions.” Modern Language Association. MLA, 25 Sept. 2007. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.Google Scholar
NINES: Nineteenth-Century Scholarship Online. U of Virginia, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.Google Scholar
Steven, Railton, ed. Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture: A Multimedia Archive. U of Virginia, 1998–2008. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.Google Scholar
Reiman, Donald H. “‘Versioning’: The Presentation of Multiple Texts.” Romantic Texts and Contexts. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1987. 167–80. Print.Google Scholar
Edward, Said. Interview by David Barsamian. The Progressive. Progressive Magazine, Nov. 2001. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.Google Scholar
Edward, Said. Introduction. Moby-Dick. By Herman Melville. New York: Lib. of Amer., 1991. xiii–xxix. Print.Google Scholar
Edward, Said. “Islam and the West Are Inadequate Banners.” Observer [London] 16 Sept. 2001: 27. Print.Google Scholar
Edward, Said. Orientalism. 1978. New York: Vintage, 2003. Print. Twenty-fifth anniversary ed.Google Scholar
Schreibman, Susan, Kumar, Amit, and McDonald, Jarom. “The Versioning Machine.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 18.1 (2003): 101–07. Print.Google Scholar
Peter, Shillingsburg. Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age: Theory and Practice. 1986. 3rd ed. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Smith, Martha Nell, Vetter, Lara, Hart, Ellen Louise, and Werner, Marta, eds. Dickinson Electronic Archives. U of Maryland, 1994. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.Google Scholar
Tanselle, G. Thomas. “Critical Editions, Hypertexts, and Genetic Criticism.” Romanic Review 86.3 (1995): 581–93. Print.Google Scholar
Tanselle, G. Thomas. A Rationale of Textual Criticism. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Takayuki, Tatsumi. “Literary History on the Road: Transatlantic Crossings and Transpacific Crossovers.” PMLA 119.1 (2004): 92–102. Print.Google Scholar
“TEI: Text Encoding Initiative.” Text Encoding Initiative Consortium. TEI, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2008.Google Scholar
James, Thorpe. Principles of Textual Criticism. San Marino: Huntington Lib., 1972. Print.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Venuti. The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. London: Routledge, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Andrew, Wikholm. “Westphal Invents Sexual Inversion.” Gay History.com. Gay History, 1998. Web. 29 May 2008.Google Scholar