Collections of Critical Essays
Bickman, Martin, ed. Approaches to Teaching Melville’s Moby-Dick. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1985. Part of the MLA’s series Approaches to Teaching Masterpieces of World Literature; intended for teachers who are not experts in the novel, but useful for the general reader as a source of ideas and approaches.
Brodhead, Richard H., ed. New Essays on Moby-Dick. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Bryant, John, and Robert Milder, eds. Melville’s Evermoving Dawn: Centennial Essays. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997.
Jehlen, Myra, ed. Herman Melville: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1994. Updates a Prentice-Hall collection edited by Richard Chase in 1962.
Hayford, Harrison, and Hershel Parker, eds. Moby-Dick as Doubloon. New York: W. W. Norton, 1970. Titled from chapter XCIX of the novel, in which members of the crew make different interpretations of the coin’s symbolism.
Higgins, Brian, and Hershel Parker, eds. Critical Essays on Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. New York: G. K. Hall, 1992. A large collection, particularly useful for both the history and the character of the commentary. Among other fine articles, reprints the classic essay by Walter E. Bezanson, “Moby-Dick: Work of Art,” which first appeared in the Hillway-Mansfield collection noted below.
Hillway, Tyrus, and Luther S. Mansfield, eds. Moby-Dick: Centennial Essays. Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1953.
Stern, Milton R., ed. Discussions of Moby-Dick. Boston: Heath, 1960.
Longer Critical Studies
A great many books have been written about Melville, and a short list is bound to seem arbitrary. Most cited here are older works that have stood up well. There are many good later studies; given the large amount of work on Melville, they have tended to become more narrowly focused and specialized, and some are in the rhetoric of “postmodern” theory that can be confusing to nonspecialists. A reader should begin with a good essay collection, like that by
Higgins and Parker (see previous section), that will lead to longer works of interest.
Arvin, Newton. Herman Melville. New York: Sloane, 1960. Still one of the most perceptive and balanced general books, particularly good on Melville’s language.
Bryant, John. Melville and Repose: The Rhetoric of Humor in the American Renaissance. New York: Oxford, 1993. A careful study of a vital subject in Moby-Dick.
Chase, Richard. Herman Melville: A Critical Study. New York, 1949. Still worth reading, particularly on the author’s use of folk humor.
Matthiessen, F. O. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1941. The classic study of our mid-nineteenth-century literature. Its arguments have been absorbed into later scholarship, but this book remains more readable than much that came after it.
Philbrick, Nathaniel. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. New York: Viking Penguin, 2000. A fine and readable account of the shipwreck that was one of Melville’s important sources for Moby-Dick; informative on the culture of Nantucket; concentrates on the fates of the survivors, in this sense beginning where Moby-Dick stops.
Vincent, Howard P. The Trying-Out of Moby-Dick. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1949. An important early study of Melville’s use of his sources.
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a The Roman statesman Cato the Younger (95-46 B.C.) killed himself rather than submit to Caesar.
b Poseidon.
c Not to eat beans.
d With Sodom, a sinful city destroyed by God; see the Bible, Genesis 18-19.
e Valley south of Jerusalem, symbolic of Hell.
f Wind that shipwrecked Saint Paul; see the Bible, Acts 27.
g Raised from the dead by Christ; see the Bible, John 11-12 and Luke 16:19-31.
h Also called the Spice Islands; in the Malay Archipelago.
i Prophet swallowed by a whale but saved by God; see the Bible, Jonah 1-2.
j Usually scrimshaw; scenes drawn on or objects carved from whale teeth or bone. ‡Southern tip of Manhattan in New York City.
k See Chap. XXIII, “The Lee Shore,” where Bulkington is made the symbol of unending physical and intellectual adventure.
l Jacket.
m In Greek myth, a complex structure built by Daedalus for King Minos to house the monster Minotaur.
n Inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands.
o Cotton fabric; the Indian city Bombay had become known for it.
p Popular magician of the time.
q Near Bombay, India, an island dedicated to worship of the Hindu god Shiva, spirit of destruction.
r Dangerous shoals near the coast of England.
s Military promotion without higher pay and with limited exercise of rank.
t Canadian city; the upper city is on a bluff fortified in earlier warfare.
u Castle sited high above the Rhine River.
v Horatio Nelson, great British admiral killed on his ship Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
w Important whaling port on Long Island, New York.
x Peter the Great (1672-1725), Russian emperor; when young he traveled and worked abroad for experience.
y Island south of Cape Cod, a great whaling port; at the time it had a significant population.
z Stand to hold a wig.
aa Skilled makers of wooden casks.
ab Off the coast of England.
ac Type of clam.
ad Alexander the Great, conqueror of a vast empire in the fourth century B.C.
ae Prussia, Russia, and Austria took over parts of Poland in partitions of 1772, 1793, and 1795, eventually completely eliminating it.
af The hotel is named after the large iron kettles in which oil is rendered from blubber.
ag In nautical language, right, the opposite of port, or larboard.
ah Ninth month of the Islamic calendar, requiring daytime fasts.
ai The creed of the Anglican Church.
aj In Cologne Cathedral; supposedly relics of the wise men who bore gifts to infant Jesus.
ak Thomas à Becket (1118-1170), killed by Henry II’s men over church policies.
al Figure in Icelandic legend; his exploits are carved on his bedstead.
am Chief of a Native American tribe.
an He and Bildad, principal owners of Pequod, speak in Melville’s version of a Quaker dialect.
ao The Categut is the North Sea between Jutland and Sweden; here descriptive of Bildad.
ap The quotation is from the Bible (King James Version), Matthew 6:19-20.
aq The quotation is from the Bible (KJV ), Matthew 6:21.
ar Bottles for holding condiments.
as Prophet who denounced King Ahab’s evil deeds; see the Bible, 1 Kings 16 and following chapters.
at Sellers of foodstuffs.
au Disreputable street in Liverpool described in Melville’s novel Redburn (1849).
av Collection of hymns by Isaac Watts (1674-1748).
aw Cask holding one-third of the larger pipe.
ax This is the last we hear of Bulkington; on p. 41.
ay English navigator James Cook (1728-1779) explored the South Pacific.
az Russian navigator Adam Krusentern (1770-1846) explored the North Pacific.
ba English navigator George Vancouver (1757-1798) explored the South Pacific and Pacific coast of North America.
bb King of Wessex who lived from 849 to 899; also a scholar, he translated into Anglo-Saxon accounts of voyages made by the ninth-century Norse explorer Ohthere.
bc English statesman who defended the interests of colonial America in a famous address in 1775.
bd Author’s note: see subsequent chapters for something more on this head.
be John Bunyan (1628-1688), Puritan preacher and author of the popular Pilgrim’s Progress (1678, 1684).
bf Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616), Spanish author of Don Quixote. ‡Soldier and U.S. president from 1829 to 1837; born in the Carolina backwoods.
bg In the biblical book of Esther, a Persian king known for power and luxury.
bh Late-eighteen century French revolutionary who called himself the Orator of Mankind.
bi Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) sculpted Perseu, who in classical myth killed the Gorgon Medusa.
bj Capital of Ecuador.
bk Tic doulourex, a painful twitching of facial muscles.
bl In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, act 1, scene 4, Mercutio remarks on Romeo’s dream and Queen Mab, who brings dreams that suit the dreamer.
bm Thought of as the center-point of London; royal announcements were made there.
bn Carolus Lannaeus (1707-1778), great Swedish botanist who developed a system of classification of plants and animals.
bo “Penis which enters the female, who gives milk from breasts; from the law of nature justly and deservedly” (Latin).
bp Author’s note: I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are included by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish are a noisy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny their credentials as whales; and have presented them with their pasports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology.
bq In the Bible, Isaiah 38:8, on the sun dial of Ahaz the sun’s shadow goes back ten degrees and reveals a divine message.
br Son of Adam and Eve who killed his brother Abel; his forehead was marked as a warning that he should not be killed; see the Bible, Genesis 4:1-16.
bs In Greek mythology, the souls of the most wicked people were sent, as punishment for their sins, to Tartarus, the underworld’s lowest level.
bt Author’s note: Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain. Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them in figure, yet the bookbinder’s Quarto volume in its diminished form does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume does.
bu Substance obtained from hart (deer) antlers; formerly the chief source of ammonia, used for smelling salts.
bv Arab chieftain or prince.
bw For the German emperor; an elegant occasion.
bx John Logan, an eighteenth-century Native American chief initially friendly to white settlers, until his family was killed.
by Proud tower destroyed by God, who at the same time turned one human language into many; see the Bible, Genesis 11:1-9.
bz Saint Simeon Stylites (c. 390-459), an ascetic who lived on a pillar, worshipping God.
ca Promontories at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea; considered the limits of the habitable world.
cb Huge statue built in the third century B.C.; one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
cc Platonic dialogue on immortality.
cd Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838), author of the widely used American Practical Navigator: Being an Epitome of Navigation (1802).
ce Pantheism is the belief that God and the universe are one. Thomas Cranmer was burned as a heretic in 1556, but Melville may have confused him with Protestant reformer John Wycliffe (c. 1330-1384), whose remains were exhumed and burned in 1415, the ashes scattered in a stream.
cf René Descartes (1596-1650) developed a theory that motion is circular and spiral.
cg Whirlpool near the Loften Islands off the coast of Norway; Edgar Allan Poe used it in his story “Descent into the Maelstrom.” thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.” “Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest a little lower layer. If money’s to be the measurer, man, and the accountants have computed their great counting-house the globe, by girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, let me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium here!” “He smites his chest,” whispered Stubb, “what’s that for? methinks it rings most vast, but hollow.” “Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, “that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.” “Hark ye yet again,—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the others; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends’ glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn—living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards—the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the
ch Used at the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors.
ci English boxers in the 1830s and 1840s.
cj Demogorgon; an ancient evil deity.
ck Commissioned by the Danish king, Eggert Olafsson and Bjarni Palsson wrote Travels in Iceland (1805).
cl Baron Georges Léopold Cuvier, French naturalist (1769-1832); however, Melville used another source.
cm William Scoresby, Jr., author of An Account of the Arctic Regions with a History and Description of the Northern Whale (1820); an important source for Melville.
cn In Sicily.
co Gnostic sect at the time of early Christianity that worshipped the serpent as a bringer of knowledge.
cp In Paris, a late-fifteenth-century structure built over a late-third-century Roman palace.
cq In classical architecture, a sculptured female figure used as a column.
cr White blossoms of the camellia bush.
cs City in Myanmar (Burma); from the fourteenth to the late-fifteenth centuries the center of one of the three chief states.
ct Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), in the poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798).
cu Author’s note: With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable hideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness, it might be said, only arises from the circumstance, that the irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence, by bringing together two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all this to be true; yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not have that intensified terror.
As for the white shark, the whi
te gliding ghostliness of repose in that creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most vividly hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish. The Romish mass for the dead begins with “Requiem eternam” (eternal rest), whence Requiem denominating the mass itself, and any other funereal music. Now in allusion to the white, silent stillness of death in this shark, and the mild deadliness of his habits, the French call him Requin. ‡ I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wonderous flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king’s ghost in supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white thing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint, the things that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and turning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney! I never had heard that name before; is it conceivable that this glorious thing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I learned that goney was some seaman’s name for albatross. So that by no possibility could Coleridge’s wild Rhyme have had aught to do with those mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon our deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme nor knew the bird to be an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet.
Moby-Dick (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 74
