July 17, 2019 - Chapters Sixty-nine and Seventy


These two chapters continue the butchering of Stubb’s whale. A single allusion in the first of the two chapters I comment on here – i.e., to the final line: “There are other ghosts than the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in them.” The story of the ghost spoken of can be read here. The Doctor Johnson of the allusion is Samuel Johnson, one of the giants of English literature in the 18th century, including authorship of one of the first dictionaries of modern English. A representative sample of his works can be found here.

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