Part 1: Introduction

Lifeoftheauthor

The general historical background

The literary background

Relevant ideas

A note on the text

Part 2: Summaries

A general summary

Detailed summaries

Part 3: Commentary

Nature, purpose and achievement

Relation of background

Structure

Style

Characterisation

Part 4: Hints for study

Points for detailed study

Quotations for illustration

Arrangement of material

Model answers

Part 5: Suggestions for further reading

The author of these notes

Introduction



Life of the author



Born in New York City on 1 August 1819, to a family with Scottish

and Dutch roots, Herman Melville received continuous fonnal

schooling only until 1832. His father went bankrupt in 1830 and died

in 1832. As a result, Hennan Melville at the age of twelve began to

maintain himself. He was successively a bank clerk, a farm hand, a

store clerk, and a schoolmaster. For a short time he attended the

Albany Classical School.



Melville's first sea voyage to Liverpool in England followed his

futile attempt to become an engineer for the building of the Erie

Canal. After his return from Liverpool, he tried school-teaching

again, then travelled to Galena, Illinois, to work with an uncle, but

could see no altemative to returning to sea. He shipped aboard the

whaler Acushnet, bound for the Pacific Ocean, on 3 January 1841,

and remained at sea until 14 October 1844.



Melville's first novels about his experiences on islands in the Pacific,

Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), were both popular and controversial.

In 1847, through the editor Evert Duyckinck (1816-78), Melville

became a regular contributor to New York magazines, and his style

changed. In August 1847, Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, daughter

of the Chief Justice of Massachusetts. His next novel. Mardi (1849),

an allegory of the South Seas, was unpopular. Melville then wrote the

romances Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850) in haste to regain

his popular readership.



In 1850 Melville purchased Arrowhead Farm in Pittsfield,

Massachusetts; he struck up a stimulating friendship with the author

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64), who lived nearby; and he began The

Whale, later renamed Moby Dick, which demonstrated his creative

genius.



Moby Dick (1851) failed with both the critics and the public.

Afterwards, Melville became increasingly reclusive, and his works

became dominated by pessimism. His novel Pierre (1851) failed, and

the stories that he wrote for Putnam's Monthly Magazine in the 1850s

reflect Melville's mcreasing preoccupation with evil and human

isolation. Even after a restorative voyage to England, Melville wrote

The Confidence Man (1857), a biting criticism of American

commercialism.



Although 1857 marked the virtual end of Melville's career as a

public writer, he began privately to publish poetry that is only today

receiving the critical attention that it deserves: Battle-Pieces and

Aspects ofthe War (1866), John Marr. and Other Sailors; With Some

Sea-Pieces (1888), and Timoleon (1891). Left unfinished at Melville's

death on 28 September 1891 was Billy Budd, Sailor, not published

until 1924, now a classic of American literature.



The general historical background



Through westward expansion, polhical isolation from Europe and the

American Civil War (1860-5), the United States became large, unifled

and powerful. Sixteen states in 1796, the United States contained

forty-five in 1896. The frontier expanded from the Mississippi river to

the Pacific Ocean, so that by 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner

(1861-1932) could proclaim that there was no more frontier in

America.



The centre for shipping and commerce during this period was New

York City, and gradually during the century the centre of cultural

influence shifted from Boston to New York. Immigration from

Northern Europe continued throughout the nineteenth century and

provided the labour for building railroads, canals, and roads. In the

aftermath of economic depressions, such as the Panic of 1837, jobs

were scarce for everyone, but northern manufacturing and commerce

increased steadily.



The independent income of a political appointment was one

possible means of obtaining support for a genteel way of living, but

appointments were very difficult to obtain, even though the 'Spoils

System' (the art of replacing fonner appointees with one's favourites)

made the situation somewhat better than it had been before Andrew

Jackson's presidency (1828-36). People capable of management in

general were turned away. Under a veneer of democracy, the United

States was becoming a land of rich, powerful families and common

labourers, bound together through commercialism.

The Confidence Man (1857), a biting criticism of American

commercialism.



Although 1857 marked the virtual end of Melville's career as a

public writer, he began privately to publish poetry that is only today

receiving the critical attention that it deserves: Battle-Pieces and

Aspects of the War (1866), John Marr, and Other Sailors; With Some

Sea-Pieces (1888), and Timoleon (1891). Left unfinished at Melvill's

death on 28 September 1891 was Billy Budd, Sailor, not published

until 1924, now a classic of American literature.



The general historical background



Through westward expansion, political isolation from Europe and the

American Civil War (1860-5), the United States became large, unified

and powerful. Sixteen states in 1796, the United States contained

forty-five in 1896. The frontier expanded from the Mississippi river to

the Pacific Ocean, so that by 1893 Frederick Jackson Tumer

(1861-1932) could proclaim that there was no more frontier in

America.



The centre for shipping and commerce during this period was New

York City, and gradually during the century the centre of cultural

influence shifted from Boston to New York. Immigration from

Northem Europe continued throughout the nineteenth century and

provided the labour for building railroads, canals, and roads. In the

aftermath of economic depressions, such as the Panic of 1837, jobs

were scarce for everyone, but northern manufacturing and commerce

increased steadily.



The independent income of a political appointment was one

possible means of obtaining support for a genteel way of living, but

appointments were very difficult to obtain, even though the 'Spoils

System' (the art of replacing former appointees with one's favourites)

made the situation somewhat better than it had been before Andrew

Jackson's presidency (1828-36). People capable of management in

general were turned away. Under a veneer of democracy, the United

States was becoming a land of rich, powerful families and common

labourers, bound together through commercialism.