Herman Melville An AntiTranscendentalist Or Not Essay

Herman Melville: An Anti-Transcendentalist Or Not Essay, Research Paper

Melville, Herman (1819-91), an American Novelist, is widely regarded as one ofAmerica’s greatest and most influential novelists; known primarily as the author of MobyDick. He belonged to a group of eminent pre-Civil War writers-American Romantics ormembers of the American Renaissance-who created a new and vigorous nationalliterature. He is one of the notable examples of an American author whose work wentlargely unrecognized in his own time and died in obscurity. American novelist, a majorliterary figure whose exploration of psychological and metaphysical themes foreshadowed20th-century literary concerns but whose works remained in obscurity until the 1920s,when his genius was finally recognized. Melville was born August 1, 1819, in New York City, into a family that haddeclined in the world. The Gansevoorts were solid, stable, eminent, prosperous people; the(Hermans Fathers side) Melvilles were somewhat less successful materially, possessing anunpredictable. erratic, mercurial strain. (Edinger 6). This difference between the Melvillesand Gansevoorts was the beginning of the trouble for the Melville family. Hermans mothertried to work her way up the social ladder by moving into bigger and better homes. Whileborrowing money from the bank, her husband was spending more than he was earning. Itis my conclusion that Maria Melville never committed herself emotionally to her husband,but remained primarily attached to the well off Gansevoort family. (Humford 23) AllanMelville was also attached financially to the Gansevoorts for support. There is a lot ofevidence concerning Melvilles relation to his mother Maria Melville. Apparently the olderson Gansevoort who carried the mother’s maiden name was distinctly her favorite.(Edinger 7) This was a sense of alienation the Herman Melville felt from his mother. Thiswas one of the first symbolists to the Biblical Ishamel. In 1837 he shipped to Liverpool as a cabin boy. Upon returning to the U.S. hetaught school and then sailed for the South Seas in 1841 on the whaler Acushnet. After an18 month voyage he deserted the ship in the Marquesas Islands and with a companionlived for a month among the natives, who were cannibals. He escaped aboard anAustralian trader, leaving it at Papeete, Tahiti, where he was imprisoned temporarily. Heworked as a field laborer and then shipped to Honolulu, Hawaii, where in 1843 he enlistedas a seaman on the U.S. Navy frigate United States. After his discharge in 1844 he beganto create novels out of his experiences and to take part in the literary life of Boston andNew York City. Melville’s first five novels all achieved quick popularity. Typee: A Peep atPolynesian Life (1846), Omoo, a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847), andMardi (1849) were romances of the South Sea islands. Redburn, His First Voyage (1849)was based on his own first trip to sea, and White-Jacket, or the World in a Man-of-War(1850) fictionalized his experiences in the navy. In 1850 Melville moved to a farm nearPittsfield, Massachusetts, where he became an intimate friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne, towhom he dedicated his masterpiece Moby-Dick; or The White Whale (1851). The central theme of the novel is the conflict between Captain Ahab, master of thewhaler Pequod, and Moby-Dick, a great white whale that once tore off one of Ahab’s legsat the knee. Ahab is dedicated to revenge; he drives himself and his crew, which includesIshmael, narrator of the story, over the seas in a desperate search for his enemy. The bodyof the book is written in a wholly original, powerful narrative style, which, in certainsections of the work, Melville varied with great success. The most impressive of thesesections are the rhetorically magnificent sermon delivered before sailing and the soliloquiesof the mates; lengthy flats, passages conveying nonnarrative material, usually of a technicalnature, such as the chapter about whales; and the more purely ornamental passages, suchas the tale of the Tally-Ho, which can stand by themselves as short stories of merit. Thework is invested with Ishmael’s sense of profound wonder at his story, but nonethelessconveys full awareness that Ahab’s quest can have but one end. And so it proves to be:Moby-Dick destroys the Pequod and all its crew save Ishmael. There is a certain streak ofthe supernatural being projected in the writings of Melville, as is amply obvious in MobyDick. The story revolves around the idea of an awesome sea mammal, which drives thepassions of revenge in one man and forces him to pursue a course of action which leadsultimately to his death as well as the deaths of his companions. There is a great deal ofimagination involved in these stories and the creativity is highly apparent. There is anexpression of belief in the supernatural, as the author strives to create the image of ahumongous beast in the mind of the reader. There are no indications that Melville was inany way averse to fame or to the pursuit of excellence in his work. Every author, when

writing a book, is hopeful of its success and Melville was no less. The Piazza Tales (1856) contain some of Melville’s finest shorter works;particularly notable are the powerful short stories Benito Cereno and Bartleby theScrivener and the ten descriptive sketches of the Gal pagos Islands, Ecuador, TheEncantadas. Bartleby’s story is an allegory of withdrawal suggesting more than one level ofinterp