The Piazza, Herman Melville
The Piazza, Herman Melville
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The Piazza

Author: Herman Melville

Narrator: George Keller

Unabridged: 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/13/2018

Categories: Fiction, Short Stories


Synopsis

While sitting on his private piazza, the narrator imagines life at an idyllic home in the mountains. In his daydream, he meets a lonely young woman who often gazes at his house from afar and wonders about him. Using prose rife with literary allusions, Melville explores the limitations of idealism. This story is found in his collection of short fiction, The Piazza Tales. 

About Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1819–1891) was an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and poet who is often classified as part of dark romanticism. He is best known for his novel Moby Dick and novella Billy Budd, the latter which was published posthumously. His first three books gained much attention, the first becoming a bestseller, but after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime. When he died, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early twentieth century that his work won recognition, most notably Moby Dick, which was hailed as one of the chief literary masterpieces of both American and world literature.


Reviews

I have been studiously avoiding Melville's Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, which is on the 1001 list. The members of the group reading that list here on Goodreads have a sort of love/hate reaction to it; one of the things most often mentioned against it is the writing style. I decided I could preview that......more