American Literature

American Literature 美国文学史及选读

Herman Melville --everlasting nay • Life experience • Literary Career • Theme and Style • Appreciation of Moby Dick

His Life 1.Born in New York City, Herman Melville was the son of a prosperous merchant who died when Herman Melville was only twelve. (happy childhood to 11; little education) 2. worked early: bank clerk; salesman; farm-hand; school teacher; 3.The boy was forced to leave school.Unable to find a profession, he became a sailor. He went to sea at about 20 as a whaler;

Life experience(2) 4.Three things deserve mention about his life: a.going out to sea b. marriage c. friendship with Hawthorne His sailing tears gave him the background Of ships and islands that served him well in his early successes,Typee(1846).His masterpiece Moby Dick, a whaling story took almost a century before the novel was recognized by readers. Herman Melville soon became known as the “man who lived among cannibals.”His commercial failure of the works made his death unnoticed by the public in 1891.

Life experience (3) 5 voracious reader;prolific for 8 years after his return from the sea; 6 later in his life wrote other books and some long stories; 7 worked in the Custom House in New York for the last 20 years of his life; 8 died at 72 in oblivion.

Literary Career • Novels about the sea are extremely popular in the early 1840s. By writing these novels, Melville established his reputation as an adventure writer. • Melville's writings can be divided into two groups: 1) Early works 2) Later Works 3) Comment on his works

Early works Novels: • Typee (1846) 《泰比》 (made him famous) • Omoo (1847) 《奥穆》 • Mardi (1849) 《玛第》 --adventures among the people of South Pacific • Redburn (1849) 《莱德伯恩》 --a voyage to England • White Jacket (1850) 《白衣》 --life on a United States man-of-war • Moby Dick (1851) 《莫比.迪克》 The White Whale(masterpiec) Pierre (1852) 《皮埃尔》

Later Works Novels: • The Confidence-Man (1857) 《骗子》 • Billy Budd (1924) 《比利.巴德》 Long stories: • Benito Cereno (1856)《贝尼托.西莱诺》 • Bartleby (1856) 《巴比妥》 Poem: Clarel (1876)《克莱尔》

Comment on his works • In his early ones Melville is more enthusiastic about setting out on a quest for the meaning of the universe, hence they are more metaphysical and the main characters are ardent and self-dramatizing "I", defying God, as best reflected in Moby Dick. • In the later works, Melville becomes more reconciled with the world of man in which one must live by the rules.

Theme and Style 1) Alienation between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Captain Ahab seems to be the best illustration of it all. 2) rejection and quest. The narrator Ishmael is a good example. 3) symbolism. The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience”. 4) ambiguity. Through employing the technique of multiple view in his narratives.

Appreciation of Moby Dick • General Introduction • Plots (P83) • Style • Question for discussion

General Introduction Melville is best known as the author of one book, Moby Dick, which is one of the world's greatest masterpieces. It is an encyclopedia of everything, history, philosophy, religion, etc. in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry. But it is first a Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting against overwhelming odds in an indifferent and even hostile universe (P83). It is a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology. It reveals the basic pattern of 19th-century Am. life: loneliness and suicidal individualism in a self-styled democracy. (P85)

Main Characters in Moby Dick • Pequod:the ship of the story • Captain Ahab:the main character • Starbuck and Stubb: two of the mates • Moby Dick:the great white whale • Ishmael:the young sailor who narrates the book

Style • a. The use of allegory and symbolism • b. The production of the first American prose epic. • c. Language

The use of allegory and symbolism Instead of putting the battle between Ahab and the whale into simple statements, he used symbols, that is, objects or persons who represent something else. The Pequod is a microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolizes nature. It is complex, unfathomable, malignant, and beautiful as well. For the character Ahab, the whale represents evil. Ahab wills the whole crew on the Pequod to join him in the pursuit of the big whale so as to root out the evil, but only to be destroyed by evil, by his own consuming desire, his madness. He becomes evil himself in his thirst to destroy the evil. For author, as well as the reader and Ishmael, the narrator, Moby Dick is still a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, inscrutable and ambivalent, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search of the truth.

The production of the first American prose epic • An epic is generally a long poem on an important theme. Although the book is presented in the form of a novel, at times it seems like a prose poem.

Language • Much of the talk in the novel is sailor talk, and much of the language is purposely old-fashioned, for effect. Different levels of language use and styles turn the whole book into a symphony with all musical instruments going on to form a melody.

Questions for discussion 1) symbolic meaning of Moby Dick (P86) evil to some; goodness to others; both to still others; 2) portrait of Ahab (P84-85) ① a typical Melvillean isolator; ② an Emersonian self-reliant individual; ③ a victim of solipsism;

Study Questions • 1.What kind of novel is Moby Dick? • Moby Dick, “the world’s greatest sea novel”,is the masterpiece with many layers.It is a sea adventure and mysterious creature.It is an encyclopedia of 19th century whaling life.It is a psychological portrait of a bitter, brilliant man aching for revenge and search for truth.It is a myth about the place of humankind in the universe.

2.How did the characters of the story interpret the whale in various ways? • To Ahab,the whale represents all evil.Ahab will try to defy fate. • To Ishmael,Ahab is an insane. Ishmael states what the whale means to him: he is appalled chiefly by the hideous whiteness,which suggests the demonism in the world.

American Literature