Herman Melville: Moby-Dick - Essays, Articles, Reviews

188 Pages·1998·5.3 MB·English

by  Nick Selby

111*11*1 critical guides
hermnn
mplville
rrmbij-dirk
• essays
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edited by nick selby

COLUMBIA CRITICAL GUIDES
Herman
Melville
Moby-Dick
EDITED BY NICK SELBY
Series editor: Richard Beynon
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS h*i NEW YORK
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Editor's text copyright © 1998 Nick Selby
All rights reserved
First published in the Icon Critical Guides series in 1998
by Icon Books Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Herman Melville—, Moby-Dick / edited by Nick Selby.
p. cm. (Columbia critical guides)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
—
ISBN 0-231-11538-5 (cloth : alk. paper).
ISBN 0-231-11539-3 (pbk. alk. paper)
:
1. Melville, Herman, 1819-1891. Moby Dick. 2. Sea
—
stories, American History and criticism. 3. Whaling in
literature. 4. Whales in literature. I. Selby, Nick. II. Series.
PS2384.M62H47 1999
813'.3—dc21 98-39507
Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed
on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
987654321
c 10
987654321
p 10
Contents
INTRODUCTION 7
DiscussesthewaysinwhichMoby-Dickanditscriticalhistorycanbe seen
to engage in a debate about American culture and ideology. Extracts
from Melville's essay 'Hawthorne and His Mosses' are included, and
demonstrate that many of the subsequent critical debates about Moby-
Dick were anticipated by Melville himself. A briefbiography of Melville
sets hislifewithin the context ofantebellumAmerica.
CHAPTER ONE 17
Early Reviews
Surveys the initial critical reaction to Moby-Dick. Extracts from letters
Melville wrote during the writing of the novel set the context for the
contemporarynewspaperreviewsthatfollow.Thefirstthreeextractsare
from reviews in the London Spectator, the London Athenaeum, and from
Evert Duyckinck's review that appeared in the New York Literary World.
Shorter extracts follow showing the curious and extravagant critical
language used to describe Moby-Dick in its early years. The final two
extracts are by Henry S. Salt, an English critic, largely responsible for
maintaininga criticalinterestinMoby-Dickthroughoutthelatteryearsof
the nineteenthcentury.
CHAPTER TWO 33
The 'Melville Revival'
Examinesthe upsurge ofinterest in Melville that followed WorldWarI.
Thereisa discussionofthe impactofwarandmodernismonthe wayin
which Melville's novel was read. A brief extract from Carl Van Doren's
essayonMoby-Dickforthe CambridgeHistoryofAmericanLiterature (1917)
is followed by a long extract from D.H. Lawrence's influential book
Studiesin ClassicAmericanLiterature (1922). E.M. Forster's reading ofthe
novel from his AspectsoftheNovel (1927) is then followed by an extract
from the first serious critical studyofMelville, LewisMumford's Herman
Melville (1929). Both these readings show the often bizarre ways in
whichcritics struggledtoanalyseMoby-Dick.
CHAPTER THREE 51
The 1940s: Moby-Dick and the 'American
Renaissance'
ExaminesMoby-Dick'scentralplaceinwhatF.O.Matthiessendescribesas
an 'American Renaissance' that took place in antebellum America. The
firsttwo long extracts are takenfromMatthiessen'sAmericanRenaissance
(1941). Adiscussionof Shakespeare'sinfluence oncriticaldiscussionsof
Moby-DickisdevelopedbyexaminingCharlesOlson'smagnificentCallMe
Ishmael(1947).ThefinalextractisfromRichard Chase'sHermanMelville:
A CriticalStudy (1949), andleads toa briefdiscussion ofhow criticismof
Moby-Dickhas examinedfundamentalmythsofAmericanidentity.
CHAPTER FOUR 76
The 1950s: 'Myth Criticism' and the Growth of
American Studies
The three extracts in this chapter are all crucial documents in the
development of American Studies. This chapter examines the myths of
America that have been employed in order to explain Moby-Dick's
symbolic language. The first extract is from Henry Murray's influential
psychoanalyticreadingofMoby-Dick'InNomineDiaboli' (1951).Thefollow-
ing two extracts are from books which set the terms for 'Americanist'
criticism, Charles Fiedelson's Symbolism and American Literature (1953),
andR.W.B. Lewis' TheAmericanAdam (1955).
CHAPTER FIVE 94
Formalist Approaches, Humanist Readings
Ranging from 1951 to 1986, the formalist and humanist concerns of
theseessaysare considered. Theimportance offormalismandhumanism
to the school of 'New Criticism' is discussed in relation to Walter
Bezanson'sessay'Moby-Dick:WorkofArt' (1951).Theinfluenceofformalist
critical practices is then assessedin relation tothe readings ofMoby-Dick
givenbyJohn Seelye in hisbookMelville:TheIronicDiagram (1970), and
in Lawrence Buell's essay 'Moby-Dickas Sacred Text', which is extracted
from the book New Essays on Moby-Dick (1986), edited by Richard
Brodhead.
CHAPTER SIX 115
Cultural Materialism and 'Reconstructive' Readings
Dealswith theinfluenceof'cultural materialism' onMoby-Dickcriticism.
The four extracts in this chapter place Moby-Dick in the context of the
mid-nineteenth-century American culture of which it is a product. The
firsttwoextractsanalyseMoby-Dickinrelationtospecificaspectsofante-
bellum American culture: Paul Royster's essay 'Melville's Economy of
Language' (1986) examinestheimpact ofcapitalismonMelville'snovel,
and the extract from David Leverenz's Manhood and the American
Renaissance (1989) discusses the novel in relation to discourses of man-
hood.TherelationshipbetweenMelville'snovelandAmericancultureis
examined more generally in the final two extracts, from Leo Bersani's
excellent book The CultureofRedemption (1990), and David S. Reynolds'
essay '"Its wood could only be American!": Moby-Dick and Antebellum
PopularCulture' (1992).
CHAPTER SEVEN 146
Deconstructive Reading, 'Post-humanist' Critiques and
'New Americanists'
Presents some 'postmodern' perspectives on Moby-Dick. The two main
extracts in this chapter show Moby-Dick's complicity in an American
ideologicalagenda. DonaldE. Pease'sessay'MobyDickandthe ColdWar'
(1985) reads Melville's novel alongside American Cold War ideology of
the 1950s. And Wai-chee Dimock's 'Ahab's Manifest Destiny' (1991)
deconstructstheimperialistdiscoursesthatunderpinMelville'sdepiction
of Ahab. A final, brief, extract from William V. Spanos' recentbook The
ErrantArtofMoby-Dick(1995) bringsthechaptertoaclosebyopeningup
a consideration of deconstructive critical practices in relation to Moby-
DickinparticularandAmericancultureingeneral.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 166
'
To Maggie
'Butfarbeneath this wondrous worldupon thesurface, anotherand
still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For,
suspended in those watery vaults, floated theforms ofthe nursing
mothersofthewhales, andthosethatbytheirenormousgirthseemed
shortly to becomemothers.
Moby-Dick, Chapter 87, The Grand Armada.'
Introduction
THE NARRATIVE ofMoby-Dick (1851) opens, famously, withanactof
naming. 'CallmeIshmael'isaboldstatementofself-definition, andit
is an invitation to the reader's imaginative and interpretive faculties.
From the outset, then, Moby-Dick makes us aware that acts of naming
and of defining are complex and problematic. They are, necessarily,
reciprocal: to define himself, Ishmael needs a readership. To a large
extent,justwhatMoby-Dickishasbeendefinedbyitsreadersandcritics.
Indeed, thecriticalhistoryofMoby-DickthatissketchedbythisGuidecan
beseentobeaseriesofattemptstodefinethebook, tonameitandthus
toplace itwithinanunderstoodtradition.
Such an attempt to name and defineMoby-Dickis made all the more
pressingbecause itis anAmericanbook. And, at the time ofMoby-Dick's
firstpublication, therewaslittle criticalconsensusastowhatmightcon-
stituteanAmericanbook, letaloneanAmericanliterarytradition. Itwas
generally agreed that American 'writing' was inferior to the 'literature'
of England, and that any literary qualities it did display were but poor
imitations of its European precursors. Writing in 1840, in his massively
influential book Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville notes that
'the Americans have not yet, properly speaking, got any literature'. He
continues his observations about America's literary characteristics by
stating 'Only the journalists strike me as truly American.'1 It is hardly
surprising, giventhesnobbishattitudeofwhichdeTocqueville'scomment
istypical, thatAmericanauthorswerefeltnottowarrantseriousattention.
ButwithMoby-Dick,thepossibilitiesforAmericanliteratureseemeda
little different. Melville'smasterpiece seemedto signala changedattitude,
itshowedAmericanliteraturecomingintoitsown. Herewasabookthat
defined itself, and that named its own terms of analysis. Surprisingly,
perhaps, it was de Tocqueville who had set out what those terms might
be.HehadarguedthatAmericawouldsoonbeabletocarryforthintoits
literature the promise ot its democratic politics. His prediction of
American literature's deiining'characteristics, made more than a decade
before Moby-Dick, is shrewd. And, if we discount his assertion that
Americanbooksaremoretypically'shortworks' than 'long' ones, when
measured against this definition, Moby-Dick seems to be the archetypical
Americanbook, itanswers his callprettyaccurately:
MOBY-DICK
By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the
order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature;
formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will
often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost
alwaysstrongandbold.Writerswillbemoreanxioustoworkquickly
than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long
books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a
rude and untutored vigour ofthought with great variety and singular
fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than toplease, and to
stirpassionsratherthantocharmtaste.2
Throughout this book, we shall see that criticism ofMoby-Dickhas gone
hand-in-hand with such attempts to define what American literature
mightbe. By extension, then, the struggleto defineMoby-Dickwitnesses
America'sownstruggles, as anewnation, toname anddefinethe terms
ofits own culture. Moby-Dickis therefore a vital document, so to speak,
in an American declaration of cultural independence. All the essays in
this Critical Guide show how a reading of Moby-Dick has been used to
plot the co-ordinates in a reading of America. Moby-Dick has thus been
seen as the key text in the growth, development and reassessment of
American Studies. Theargumentsthatare rehearsedoverMelville'stext
are ones that tell of wider debates in American culture and ideology in
general. In 1851, then, Melville provided America with a language to
examine its liberal democracy and its emerging capitalism, a means to
define how its different voices and identities compete within a united
text, and how its struggles for power mark its growing identity within
worldpolitics. Uptothe present day, criticismofMoby-Dickisstillassess-
ing this language, still engaging with the book as a means of engaging
withAmerica.
ItwasMelvillehimselfwhosetoutmanyofthetermsbywhichsub-
sequentcriticismwouldengagewithMoby-Dick.Thishedidinhisreview
essay 'Hawthorne and His Mosses' (1850) which was written whilst he
was at work on Moby-Dick. In this essay, he reviews a book of short
stories, Mossesfrom an OldManse, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Melville had
justrecentlymadetheacquaintanceofHawthorne. Asneighboursliving
ona rural estate near Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the two were tobecome
firmfriends. 'HawthorneandHisMosses'isimportantnotsimplyforthe
enthusiastic account it gives of Hawthorne's work, but also because it
delineates many of Melville's attitudes towards American literature,
attitudes that are relevant to a reading of Moby-Dick. The extracts from
'Hawthorne and His Mosses' which followtrace some ofthese attitudes,
especially Melville's idea of American literary genius, his sense of the
relationship oftheAmericanwriterto Shakespeare, andthe importance
ofdemocracytoAmericanliterature.
8