Melville is a post-industrial revolution author, though, writing from the other side of modernity’s threshold. Where Shakespeare’s preoccupation is in human relations and the psyche, Melville recognizes that we are in a time of discovery and change, and he is just as intently interested in society, the economy, biology, and the wider planet. Even when telling the history of a country, Shakespeare’s worlds are small; Melville’s, despite being substantially hemmed to a boat, is somehow large. Maybe Shakespeare in some way captured all there was to be captured at the time; if so, in Melville we can see how much larger humanity has become: industry, trade networks, energy, science, anthropology, firms with multinational labour, knowable continents beyond great seas.
— Read on x.com/patrickc/status/1977074940907282924
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