Title: Billy Budd, foretopman : re-reading desire
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2021, vol. 47, iss. 2, pp. 45-56
Extent
45-56
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2021-2-4
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/144875
Type: Article
Language
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
Herman Melville's Billy Budd is hostile to interpretation (Kelley 2008): ambiguous, posthumous and possibly incomplete, it has left criticism at odds – its symbolisms and allegories sending out messages at times coherent, at times deeply contradictory. Since its publication in 1924 at least two main strands have dominated the critical panorama on the novella, one focused on the legalistic aspects raised by the text and one centered on the homoerotic substratum of the characters' relations instead. Maintaining that, though not erroneous, such schemes tend to leave out portions of meaning in order to comply with an idea of interpretation, this paper aims at offering a third view towards the understanding of a conflictual text in light of desire theories: the role of envy as a leading passion will be analyzed, together with that of identification in the process of identity-making. The concepts of "flexible" and "rigid" identity (Bottiroli 2002; 2006) will be relied on in order to account for the behavior of the three main characters (Billy, Vere, Claggart), including their apparent contradictions and aporias.
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[5] Bottiroli, Giovanni (2018) Return to literature. A manifesto in favour of theory and against methodologically reactionary studies (cultural studies etc.). Comparatismi 3, 1–37. https://doi-org.ezproxy.muni.cz/10.14672/20181478
[6] Bottiroli, Giovanni (2018) Shakespeare e il teatro dell'intelligenza. Metodo. International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy 6 (1), 73–98. https://doi-org.ezproxy.muni.cz/10.19079/metodo.6.1.73
[7] Bottiroli, Giovanni (2020) La prova non ontologica. Per una teoria del nulla e del 'non.' Sesto San Giovanni: Mimesis.
[8] Curi, Umberto (2019) Il colore dell'inferno. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
[9] Duerksen, Roland A. (1966) Caleb Williams, Political Justice, and Billy Budd. American Literature, 38 (3), 372–376.
[10] Girard, René (1980) La violenza e il sacro. Italian translation by Ottavio Fatica and Eva Czerkl. Milano: Adelphi.
[11] Freud, Sigmund (1949 [1921]) Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. London: The Hoghart Press.
[12] Kelley, Wyn (2008) Herman Melville an Introduction. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.
[13] Kelley, Wyn, and Charlene Avallone, eds. (2015) A Companion to Herman Melville. Oxford: Wiley.
[14] Lacan, Jacques, et al. (1977) Desire and the interpretation of desire in Hamlet. Yale French Studies 55/56, 11–52. | DOI 10.2307/2930434
[15] Melville, Herman (1952) Selected Writings of Herman Melville. Complete short stories, Typee and Billy Budd, Foretopman. New York: Modern Library.
[16] Person, Leland (2015) Gender and Sexuality. In: Kelley, Wyn and Charlene Avallone (eds.). A Companion to Herman Melville. Oxford: Wiley. 231–247.
[17] Rubin, Larry (1980) 'Billy Budd': What goes on behind closed doors? American Imago 37 (1), 65–67.
[18] Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (1990) Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[19] Stolarek, Joanna (2018) Fluid Identities and Social Dislocation in the Face of Crime, Guilt and Ethics in Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley and The Tremor of Forgery. Brno Studies in English 44 (2), 145–156. | DOI 10.5817/BSE2018-2-9
[20] Umphrey, Martha Merrill (2007) Law's bonds: eros and identification in 'Billy Budd.' American Imago 64 (3), 413–431. | DOI 10.1353/aim.2007.0037