pt. 1. The nature of recent primitivism. I. Primitivism and cultural failure : Academic primitivism and the symbol of primitive feeling ; Rousseauistic primitivism ; Cultural failure ; Exoticism and professional Orientalism -- II. Perdita: the volcanic center : Archetype and sacrament ; The voyage to Perdita ; Emotive compulsion toward the Orient ; The eminence of Melville -- pt. 2. Ishmael: the westward mariner. III. Melville's Pacific voyages: an evaluation : Sources of Melville's autotypes ; Ishmael, the overseer ; Melville's sensuous experience in Polynesia ; Selectivity and the Polynesian autotype -- IV. The perpetuity of Ishmael : Stoddard, Mark Twain ; Becke ; Loti ; Stevenson ; Adams ; Gauguin, Segalen, Middleton, O'Brien ; Fenollosa, Hearn ; Leconte de Lisle, Ducasse, Rimbaud, Verhaeren -- pt. 3. Avatars: symbols of reincarnation from the Orient. -- V. Obsession with the primeval east : The sense of deep time ; The tendency toward symbolistic polarity -- VI. Puer aeternus: eternal innocence : Tayo ; The sailor savage ; Billy Budd -- VII. Polynesian ethos : The ideality of Queequeg ; Indifference to death ; Queequeg and the archetypal sage ; Fayaway and related figures -- VIII. Whiteness : Animism ; The vortex ; Autotypes of whiteness -- IX. Shadows and erotic symbols : Fedallah ; Altars and stones ; Eros ; The lizard ; Tiki -- X. Tree and cross : Animism ; The cross in primitive setting -- XI. The dragon whale : Moby Dick's elements of antiquity ; Moby Dick as Hindu deity ; In a bower of the Arsacides ; The dragon as God -- pt. 4. Images from the Urwelt: the world before civilization. XII. The sea and aqueous images : Primitive waters ; Reef and lagoon -- XIII. Original nature : Forests ; Animal forms ; The anaconda ; The giant tortoise -- pt. 5. Entombment: Christianity revisited. XIV. The infernal city : The tombs of evening ; City of Dis ; The bell-tower -- XV. The holy sepulchre : The voyage to Jerusalem ; Mar Saba ; After Melville
