| Like a postmodern text, the debts incurred by this book have no clear boundary. They reach back to my father, the late Dr. Raymond W. Short, and include all those who have helped along the way. |
| Topgallant thanks go to Harold Bloom for sponsoring and guiding the fellowship which gave this book its initial shape and to Sharon Crowley for tutoring me in the history of rhetoric. |
| Of those who have read and commented on the manuscript, special mention goes to Edgar Dryden for his insight into Melville's imaginative presence and to James Bartell for flogging my prose toward lucidity. Others whose consultation has been helpful include Richard Brodhead, Bill Burke, James Duban, Lis Mller, Lowry Nelson, Jr., Helle Porsdam, Douglas Robillard, Jan Swearingen, Yoshiko Tomishima, and Donald Yannella. |
| My colleagues at Northern Arizona University form a community of scholars to whose support and inspiration I am deeply indebted. I am grateful also to Alfred Weber and others at the University of Tbingen, Germany, for sharing ideas during my 1987 stay and to the faculties of the Universities of Copenhagen, Erlangen, Freiburg, Kassel, Marburg, and Munich for the opportunity to present and discuss parts of this book. The faculties of English and Comparative Literature at Yale University have made my time there valuable beyond my ability to judge. My students have kept me alive and honest. |
| Crucial to my research has been summer support from the Northern Arizona University Organized Research Committee and sabbatical and released time provided by the offices of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of Arts and Sciences, and English Department Chair. A short-term fellowship at the Newberry Library and a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University enabled early stages of the project. The staffs of the Newberry, Sterling (Yale), and Cline (NAU) libraries have been continually gracious and helpful, as have Senior Editor Clark Dougan and the staff of the University of Massachusetts Press. |
| Among those who have offered friendship and kindness along the way, special thanks go to those whose extended or repeated hospitality made the peripatetic life of a researcher possible: Nicole and Eberhard Bser, Claude de Cher- |
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