Charles Olson

First published in 1947, this acknowledged classic of American literary criticism explores the influences-especially Shakespearean ones-on Melville's writing of Moby-Dick. One of the first Melvilleans to advance what has since become known as the "theory of the two Moby-Dicks," Olson argues that there were two versions of Moby-Dick, and that Melville's reading King Lear for the first time in between the first and second versions of the book had a...