‘I must calculate over again’: measures of pain in Melville

This essay investigates the fraught question of measure pain in a selection Melville's writings and examines how articulation is underwritten by contest between claims arithmetic literature. Closely reading scenes thwarted measurements ‘The Encantadas’ (1854), Moby-Dick (1851), ‘Bartleby’ (1853), it argues that, while problem for Melville may begin on terrain epistemology, ends realm literary representation, as language moves from figures to figuration.