The Voyage of Life
Stephen Curley
Watch the Replay
The sea voyage is one of the earliest metaphors about the meaning of life. This lecture looks at how that metaphor works. First, we examine a short poem by Walt Whitman that seems to be about a merchant vessel. Next, we examine the story told in four nineteenth-century oil paintings by Thomas Cole, the Dean of the so-called Hudson River School of artists. And finally, we listen to and appreciate a complex tale of self-interest and self-sacrifice in a traditional British ballad.
![](https://i0.wp.com/houstonmaritime.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Curley-Stephen-1.jpg?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1)
Stephen Curley
Stephen Curley is a Regents Professor and an award-winning teacher of literature, writing, and film at Texas A&M University at Galveston. He received his B.A. from Fordham University and his Ph.D. from Rice University. He has published books about coastal Texas; American war movies; women and minorities in Texas culture; the history of Texas A&M University at Galveston; and a Second-World-War attack transport that became an ocean liner, a maritime training ship, and is now a diving reef. He has released a recording of sea chanteys and makes community presentations on topics related to popular culture and the sea.