Frederick Douglass & Herman Melville : essays in relation / edited by Robert S. Levine & Samuel Otter.

Revolutionary fictions and activist labor: looking for Douglass and Melville together / John Ernest -- Fugitive justice: Douglass, Shaw, Melville / Robert K. Wallace -- Cheer and gloom: Douglass and Melville on slave dance and music / Sterling Stuckey -- Douglass, Melville, and the moral economies of American authorship / Susan M. Ryan -- Volcanoes and meteors: Douglass, Melville, and the poetics of insurrection / William Gleason -- Interracial friendship and the aesthetics of freedom / John Stauffer -- Political theology in Douglass and Melville / Steven Mailloux -- The ethics of impertinence: Douglass and Melville on England / Elisa Tamarkin -- The ends of enchantment: Douglass, Melville, and U.S. expansionism in the Americas / Rodrigo Lazo -- Fraternal melancholies: manhood and the limits of sympathy in Douglass and Melville / Elizabeth Barnes -- Douglass's and Melville's "alphabets of the blind" / Hester Blum -- A view from the closet: reconcilable differences in Douglass and Melville / David Van Leer -- Riveted to the wall: covetous fathers, devoted sons, and the patriarchal pieties of Melville and Douglass / Maurice Wallace -- Fahrenheit 1861: cross patriotism in Melville and Douglass / Russ Castronovo, Dana D. Nelson -- White fratricide, black liberation: Melville, Douglass, and Civil War memory / Carolyn L. Karcher -- Douglass, Melville, and the lynching of Billy Budd / Gregory Jay -- Melville, Douglass, the Civil War, pragmatism / Maurice S. Lee -- 1855/1955: from antislavery to civil rights / Eric J. Sundquist.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) and Herman Melville (1819-1891) addressed in their writings a range of issues that continue to resonate in American culture: the reach and limits of democracy; the nature of freedom; the roles of race, gender, and sexuality; and the place of the United States in the world. Yet they are rarely discussed together, perhaps because of their differences in race and social position. Douglass escaped from slavery and tied his well-received nonfiction writing to political activism, becoming a figure of international prominence. Melville was the grandson of Revolutionary War heroes and addressed urgent issues through fiction and poetry, laboring in increasing obscurity. In eighteen original essays, the contributors to this collection explore the convergences and divergences of these two extraordinary literary lives. Developing new perspectives on literature, biography, race, gender, and politics, this volume ultimately raises questions that help rewrite the color line in nineteenth-century studies. - Publisher.

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