Moby Dick: A Reading Series

Folio Seattle and The Center for Wooden Boats host an in-depth reading of Moby Dick. This six-week seminar will be read-as-we-go, and we will cover approximately 60 pages per week. We will be using the Third Norton Critical Edition for this series.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville is unarguably one of the greatest works in the English language. Wise, funny, and captivating, it continues to maintain a relevance in the twenty-first century. Now is your opportunity to discover Melville’s genius and experience one of the greatest pieces of American literature.

Moby Dick is an adventurous whaling story, but presents as well an insightful study of obsession, madness, and socio/political allegory that captures our contemporary discussions of democracy, capitalism, and environmentalism. The three famous opening words and the image of the one-legged Ahab in pursuit of the great White Whale remain cultural icons. Melvilie’s prose is luscious, descriptive, and evocative. It is literature that is provocative, exhilarating, extraordinary and at times exasperating. Very few American writers have ever come close to achieving what he has.

Schedule:

1. 4 January Chapters 1-17
2. 11 January Chapters 18-39
3. 18 January MLK -No meeting
4. 25 January Chapters 40-54
5. 1 February Chapters 55-82
6. 8 February Chapters 83-105
7. 15 February Presidents Day - No meeting
8. 22 February Chapters 106- Epilogue