smegma AND mama's Mow-mix

 

Thais for tho Dogma of M. A.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Charles I. Swifzer
1956

 

SHAKESPEARE AND MELVILLE'S MDBY—DICK

By
Charles I. Switzer

ATEESIS

Submitted in partial mlfillment of the
requirmnts for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
in Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan

1956

THESW

 

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

Notes

II. MELVILLE’S STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE

Notes

III. SHAKESPEARE AND THE "SECONDn MOBY-DICK

Notes

Iv. "ms ART 'ITSELF IS 1mm"

Notes

V. "A MIGHTY PAGEANT CREATURE, FORMED FOR NOBLE TRAGEDIES"

Notes

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2h

27
ho

S?

58
100

105

CIULPTER I
INTRODUCTION
{fibr-pick was two books written between February, 1-950 and August, 1851.
e lrst book did not contain Ahab.
It may not, except incidentally, have contained }.{oby-Dick.l
Moby—Dick was almost ready for the presses by late summer, 1850; but
Herman Melville's monumental story of a whaling voyage was not published
until October 18, 1851, which was almost a year and two months later. How
can we account for such a delay? Since it was not Melville's practice to let
a manuscript lie idle, the most plausible explanation, according to some
critics, is that Melville undertook a radical revision of the novel. The
comparatively few external evidences about the composition of Mom-Dick
support this assumption. _
cm February 1, 1850, Melville returned to the United States from England,
where he had arranged for the publication of White—Jacket. It is extremely
doubtful that he had started on a new book before this date. There is no
reference to the writing of Meg-Dick in the journal he kept on the trip.2
If Melville had planned to begin his novel on a whaling voyage during his
journey, in all probability he would have bought such books as Thomas Beale's
The Natural History of the Sperm Whale in Ehgland, rather than wait until his
return to America to purchase than.3 But we know that Melville, after his
retum, had Putnam's acquire such books for him in London.h Since Melville,
won his arrival from England, would probably have an accumulation of business
and social duties, Stewart suggests that Melville did not begin to write
Roby-Dick until the middle of February,S which is perhaps more accurate than
Hayford's belief “that he plunged into the composition imefiately upon his

return from England early in February. "6

(1)

The first bit of evidence concerning Moby-Dick is Melville's letter to
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., on May 1, 1850. In the next to the last paragraph
of the letter Melville makes two important statements about his novel, one
concerning his progress and the other his difficulties:

About the "whaling voyage"-I am half way in the work, 8: am very glad

that your suggestion so jumps with mine. It will be a strange sort of a
book, tho' , I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you may get oil out
of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;-& to cook
the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature
of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols. of the whalgs themselves.

Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.

By June 27, 1850, Melville seems to have progressed far enough to begin
negotiations for the publication of his novel. On this date he wrote to
Richard Bentley, his English publisher, offering him the publication of
"a romance of adventure founded upon certain wild legends in the Southern
Sperm Whale Fisheries, and illustrated by the author's own personal experience,
of two years 8: more, as a harpooneer.” He assured Bentley that the book
would be finished by late autumn.8

On August 7, 1850, Evert Duycldnck wrote his brother George that
"lielville has a new book mostly done—a romantic, fanciful, and literal and
most enjoyable presentment of the Whale Fishery—something quite new. "9
Duyckinck, who had just visited Melville, writes as if heghad seen the
manuscript and perhaps read part of it. Even if he is merely quoting Melville,
the evidence is still valid.10

Thus between February and August, 1850, Melville began and nearly
completed his whaling book. The facts considered above refute the usual

assumption that Itchy—Dick was begun in the late summer of 1850 and completed

 

at Arrowhead during the ensuing nine or ten months.11 Naturally, the belief
that Melville was nearly finished with his novel by August, 1850, hinges on

these two pieces of evidence; therefore, there may be some doubt whether

Melville couldhave beenreally "halfwayinthework‘ oanl, andwhether
he could have been "mostly done" by August 7. Stewart presents a cmvincing
argmsent against such doubters, I belie“.12 His defense was initiated by
Howard's suggestion, concerning Kelville's letter of may 1, 1850, that it
"was perhaps excessively optimistic as a reference to the amount actually
composed."13 Stewart finds no reason to doubt the literal accuracy of
Melville's statement, scintting that a novelist, in the middle of his novel,
cannot always tellhowlongthefinalprochlctwillbe.

Stewart observes that, if lelville began around February 15, by Kay 1,
1850, he would have been writing for ten weeks. Intermpticns, as far as we
know, had been few, although he did have to read proof on lhite-Jacloet,
neither long nor laborious work. Howard calcuflatee that in writing lh___:l_._t_e-__
Lug lelville couposed at the average rate of three thousand words a day,1h
a rate not excessive for a professional novelist. Assuming a six-dq week and
a three-thousand word day, lelville, Stewart believes, might have produced
180,000szme Inviswafthefact thatllom-Dickasweknowitcon-
tsins about 220,000 words, Stewart then sees no reason to question Melville's
statement cuHsyl. Assuming Iblvillewas 'Ibauminthework" bynavl,
could he have finished by August 7? On this point, Stewart admits that
Melville's time was considerably broken up during the manner. But he did have
threeweeks afterllgylwhen he couldhave written steadily, as fares we
know. At his usual rate, he could have attained a total of 16h,000 words by
was, oraboutthreequarters ofthewhole. BetweenllayZB, whenhe left '
New York for the comtry,15 and August 7, it is safe to assume he did some
writing, for he was under financial pressure and could not afford to waste his
time. Figuring it another way, Stuart points out that the total elapsed
time betwem February 15 and August 7 mounts to about 150 weekdays. To have

written a novel the length of Nagy-Dick in that period, Melville had only to
average a little less than 1500 words a day, half of what he averaged in pro-
ducing fits-Jacket.

 

Therefore, so far as the time element is concemed, I see no reason to
question Duycldnck's ststanent that the novel was ”mostly done“ by August 7,
or Stewart's estimate of the time consumed in its compositim. Let us now
ermine the above dosiments for infomstion about the contents of the novel,
wish Melville had rushed to near completion by August. llelVille's curt
reference to the book in liq—”blubber is blubber you know; tho' you may get
oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;-& to
cook the thing up, we must needs throw in a little fancy'-and his summary
of the book to Bentley in June—"s ransnce of adventure founded upon certain
wild legends in the Southern Sperm 'hale Fisheries"-give no hint of the
titanic, tragic Ahab or his demoniac hatred of llohy Dick, or of the permative
allegory that appeared bmeath the finished loll-Dick. Nor does Duycldnck' s ,
account of the nearly-finished novel in August—"a rommtic, fanciful 8c
literal & most mjoyahle presentment of the Ihale Wharf—suggest the .
philosqahic and symbolic depths which abound in the novel in its final form.
That the "presentment“ was "a literal account of the whaling industry, the
fanciful but not unprecedented destruction of the vessel, the romantic element
of mpenee that anticipated it, and a most enjoyable style'16 can be deduced
from these letters. But the vision of Hog-Dick, suggested by the information
we have about it at its beginning, falls far short of anything displqring the
dramatic intensity, the pervasive symbolism, and the depth of characteriza-
tion of the Kohl—Dick that finally reached the presses.

Thus the evidence considered shows that Melville had almost completed a

book by August and that the subject matter of it appears to be something vastly

different from Mognyick as we know it. These facts point to two conclusions:
figgt, that since the nevel was "mostly done" by August, Melville could
hardly’have Spent more than a year merely to finish the book, especially in
the light of Howard's information that Melville averaged 3000 words a day in
writing'White—Jacket; second, that in view of the information we possess
about the subject matter of the book at its beginnings, it must have under-
gone considerable revision and reworking after August 7, 1850.17

we also possess additional evidence that tends to verify these
conclusions. On December 13, 1850, Ielville wrote to Duyckinck, indicating
that he had again plunged into the work of writing'MOh ~Dick, working five
or six hours a day.18 The following June, 1851, Melville twice wrote
Hawthorne, telling him that he was not finished with Mobz-Dickl9—further
indication that he was creating from it a new and vastly different book than
the one he had previously'nearly'finishedp-a‘MObz-Dick which led its author I
to Speak of "the hell-fire in which the whole book is broiled,"20 and to
confess to Hawthorne: "I have written a wicked book, and feel Spotless as the
lamb."21 lhese statements sound but little like the novel that Melville
earlier spoke of as "a romance of adventure." In midpJuly, 1851, Hawthorne
wrote a.passage in his yonder Book: "On the hither side of Pittsfield sits
Herman Melville, shaping out the gigantic conception of his white‘whale,"22
a remark that is of a quite different flavor than Duyckinck's characterization
of the book as ”a romantic, fanciful, and literal and.most enjoyable" story
of the whale fisheries. These remarks concerning Melville's creative activity
after August 7 tend.to corrdborate the belief that he extensively revised
his "romance of adventure" during this period.

I have attempted to explain how we can account for Melville's peculiar
lack of progress in writing Mbb -Dick, how a busy writer, nearly through with

his work in August, 1850, could still be energetically laboring on his novel

in December, 1850, and still not finished in June, 1851. But the fact that
Melville was rewriting Mobz-Dick during this period, though important, is not
the main subject of this thesis; it is rather the starting point, for we must
carry the inquiry further and discover the reasons behind the revision.
Why (bid Melville discard a nearly-comleted novel in August and undertake
a time-consuming revision? He knew the price for abandoning his usual romantic
and adventurous forumla for a novel, as in Types and 9129 his recent M,
an imaginative aid symbolic novel, ill-received by the public, had been a
financial failure. What led Melville to gamble on another philosophical novel,
one which might also be unsuccessful financially? The main answer to these
queries, I believe, lies in his rediscovery of Shakespeare—as Olson puts it:
”Above all, in the ferment, Shakespeare, the cause."23
I propose that it was primarily Melville's reSponse to Shakespeare's
artistry and thought at this time that caused him to revise his novel after
August, 1850. I believe that Shakespeare was instrumental, too, in the
fruition of both Melville's artistic genius and his vision of life. Without
Shakespeare's influence, Moby-Dick might have been Melville's best romance of
the sea; but with it, Itchy-Dick became one of the greatest literary achieve-
ments of the nineteenth century. Vincent ' s commentary on the ferment within
Melville which engendered the remodeling of Molly-Dick suggests the importance
of Shakespeare's influence:
That revolution may be seen in two parts: first, as the result of forces
long gathering within Melville as he brooded on life and read Shakespeare;
second, as the sudden and magnificent release f those Shakespearean
forces when Helville met Nathaniel Hawthorne.zfi
This thesis proposes to evaluate the significance of "those Shakespearean
forces" released in Melville which resulted in the revision of Nagy-Dick.
Briefly, this thesis will attempt to show the following: (1) that Melville

was reading Shakespeare prior: to the revision of Moog-Dick and was deeply

impressed with the great dramatist; (2) that Melville's study of Shakespeare,
at least in part, motivated him.to reconstruct his novel; (3) that the
influence of Shakespearian art and thought in the revised novel is
considerable; (b) that Shakespeare's view of tragedy made a.profound effect
upon'Melville's own idea of tragedy and life. The first and second items
will be considered in chapter 2. The growth of Melville's interest in the
playwright will be traced through Melville's commentary on his reactions to
Shakespeare's plays. Chapter 3 will attempt to show rather more conclusively
what Melville's notes and comments indirectly suggest-that ShakeSpeare made
a profound.impact upon the new'Mobnyick. In this chapter I shall examine
MobyrDick for evidence of revision.and shall attempt to show that much of the
revised material is of Shakespearean derivation. Chapter 1: will consider
specifically the influence of Shakespeare, the artist, upon Melville's art
in MongDick. Chapter'5_willaconsider~in detail the debt to Shakespeare for
Melville's tragic view of life and for his tragic conception of Ahab.

It must be said that this paper is by no means intended to encompass
a complete analysis of'Melville's debt to Shakespeare, for such a study would
also include'Melville's abundant use of Shakespearean materials in Pierre,
The Confidence Han, and Billy Budd. However, for sake of emphasis, I have
confined.my study primarily to Shakespeare's influence on Mobszick.

Before considering ShakeSpeare's influence on Melville, I should like to
review the difficulties involved in such an evaluation. As Hughes says of
Melville and.Shakespeare, "Even the most exacting scholar will admit points of
contact between them, but it is a trifle difficult, even hazardous, to say
definitely that this point or that bit of’philosophy'in Melville sprung from
Shakespeare."25 Regardless of how similar a passage in Mogz-Dick may be to a

passage in one of Shakespeare's plays, it cannot be definitely substantiated

that Melville had that particular passage in mind when he wrote the lines
without Melville's own testimony. On the other hand, lacking such ideally-—
substantiated evidence, it is at the same time possible, through comparisons,
logical speculatims, and a gathering of such indirect evidence as we have,
to suggest if not absolutely establish such influence. Moreover, the multi-
plicity of ShakeSpearean influences, present in Moby-Dick and other Melville
novels, more than compensates for the inability to prove this or that idea or
device a direct borrowing from the great playwright. Indeed, the mere fact
that many possible influences cannot be absolutely proved, need not rule out
the possibility that Melville had Shakespearean passages in mind as he wrote.
I believe, in short, that the evidences of ShakeSpeare in Melville are too
numerous to be disregarded as of no value.

One thing more must be kept in mind in approaching the study of Melville's
use of Shakespeare. Iatthiessen makes a key distinction between the right and
the wrong approach to the study of a literary influence when he stresses:

We are not concerned with examining a "literary influence" in the sense
in which that term has been deadened by scholarly misuse. The conven-
tional assumption that you can find what produced a writer by studying
earlier writers was refuted, long before the Ph. D. thesis was stillborn,
by The American Scholar. Emerson knew that each age turns to particular

authors of the past, not because of the authors but because of itgéown
needs and preoccupations that those authors help make articulate.

 

This is especially true of Melville's study of Shakespeare, which will be
considered in the next chapter. Melville turned to ShakeSpeare for justifi-
cation Of his own broodings over life, tragedy, and truth. He found that
Justification in Shakespeare's view of the tragedy of life, and with
ShakeSpeare's sanction, came the chcisive influence which brought about

the supreme crystallization of Melville's creative genius.

Notes for thlter I

 

1. Charles Olson, Call Me Ishmael (New York, 19M), p. 35.

2. George R. Stewart, "The Two Moby-Dicks," 51:, m (1953-514), 1318.

3. Olson, p. 360

he Olson, P0 36.

5. SW, p. 1'18,

6. Harrison Hayford, "Two New Letters of Heman Melville," mg, XI (19th), 81.

7e Hayford, p.- 79.. .

8. Eleanor Melville Metcalf, Herman Melville: .0 1e and 10 1e (Cambridge,
Mass., 1953), p. 77. Bernard R. Jerman, in u'With Baal Admiration' : More
Correspondence between Melville and Bentley," 5L, m (1953-510. 310, n. 18,
observes: "Among the Bentley papers in the British Museum is the agreement
between the author and the publisher, dated Aug. 13, 1851, for the publication
of ‘an original work...descriptive of an American Whaling Voyage with its
accompanying adventures more particularly described in a letter of said Herman
Melville to said Richard Bentley." As Jerman suggests, it is unlikely that
the letter referred to is that of June 27, 1850, a letter containing a description
of Melville's novel which does not appear to be "more particularly described"
than the description in the agreement. If such a letter existed, it is now
regrettably lost.

9. Howard P. Vincent, The Tr .‘n --Out of Moby-Dick (Boston, 19149), pp. 24-25.
It is also quoted in 018m, p. 35; Hand, p. 81; and Stewart, p. 1:18. Hayford
notes that Luther 3. Mansfield, in Herman Melville: Author and New Yorker
(unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago, 1955), although correctly
deducing from chkinck's letter that Melville must have begun Moby-Dick soon
after his return from England, assmnes that the book mostly written 5} the
fall of 1850 was Moby-Dick as we now have it. This asslmxption is extremely
doubtful.

10. Stewart, pp. [dB-11.19.

11. Hayford, p. 82. See 3.1!. Weaver, Herman Melville, Mariner and tic
(New York, 1921), pp. 306, 311; John Freeman, Herman Melville (New York, 1926),
p. 50; Lewis mustard, Herman Melville (New YorE,‘1‘9§95,' pp. 5116, 15h.

12. SW’ D. 1‘20, n. E

13. Leon Howard, Herman Melville: A 81m (Berkeley, 1951), p. 153. It
is quoted in Stewart, p. F20, n. 74.

111. Howard, p. 132:.

15. I have been unable to locate the source for Stewart's belief that
Melville left New York for the country on May 28. Only one biographer, Lewis
Mumford, p. 135, says that Melville left in the spring; most are vague an this
matter, usually stating that he left in the summer of 1850. Both Jay Leyds,
in The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville, 18194891 (New York,
1951), I, 378, and Howard, p. 13h, state that Melville arrived at Pittsfield in
mid-July. However, this does not weaken Stewart's argument, for if Melville
remainad in New York until mid—July, he would have had at least six more weeks
after May 28 in which to write steadily. At only half his usual rate, he
could have written 514,000 words during this period, which added to his previous
output would give him a total of 218,000 words, or almost the length of Moby-
Dick as we know it. It is very possible, then, that Melville may have nearly
flashed his original version of Moby-Dick before he arrived at Pittsfield in
July. .

16. Howard, "Melville's Struggle with the Angel," M, I (19140), 200.

17. There is evidence in Meg-Dick itself for this theory of an early and
different version of a whaling voyage. There are details, especially in the
first part, which fail to harmonize with the rest of the novel. This evidence

 

 

10

Notes for Chgter I

will be considered in chapter 3.

18. Stewart, p. 1119. The December letter to Duyckinck does not state
Specifically that Melville was working on Mob -Dick, but such an assumption
is logical. Melville says: ”Do you want to Tallow how I pass my time?--I
rise at eight—thereabouts....My breakfast over, I go to my work-room 8: .
light nw fire—thm spread my M.S.S. on the table-take one business squint
at it, a fall to with a will. At 2% P.M. I hear a preconcerted knock at my
door, which (by request) continues till I rise 8: go to the door, which
serves to weam me effectively from nw writing, however interested I may be"
(Herman Melville: Representative Selections, ed. Willard Tharp, New York,
1955, p. 583). Lin—allusion to time in chapter 85 of Mo -Dick suggests that
Melville was writing this chapter on December 16, 18 0: ...and yet, that
down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o' clock
13.11. of this sixteenth day of December, 1.1). 1851 [1850]), it should still
remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water...."
Halos we have evidence suggesting that Melville was only two—thirds through
a novel he had almost completed four months earlier. If the novel was
actually near completion by August 7, only a radical revision can account
for this evidence. Sometime during the spring Elizabeth Melville made the
following memoir, which gives additional evidence that Melville was hard at
work on the novel following August 7: "wrote White Whale or Moby Dick under
unfavorable circumstances—would sit at his desk all day not eating anything
till four or five o'clock—then ride to the village after dark-would be up
early and out walking before breakfast—sometimes splitting wood for
exercise" (Leyda, I, 1112).

19. Stenrt, p. 1:19. In the first of these letters, written sometime in
early June, Melville says: "But I was talking about the 'Whale.‘ As the
fishermen say, 'he's in his flurry' when I left him some three weeks ago.

I'm going to take him by his jaw, however, before long, and finish him up in
some fashion or other.” Earlier in the letter Melville says: “In a week or

so, I shall go to New York, to bury myself in a third-story room, and work

and slave on 11y 'Ihale' while it is driving through the press. 'nlat is the
only way I can finish it now,-—I am so pulled hither and thither E circum-
stances." In the June 29 letter to Hawthorne, Melville again speaks of the
"lhale" : "Not entirely yet, though an I without something to be urgent with.
The 'Ihale' is only half through the press; for, wearied with the long delays
of the printers, and chsgusted with the heat and dust of the Babylonish brick-
kiln of New York, I came back to the country to...end the book by reclining on
it, if I may....Sha.ll I send you a fin of the 'Whale' by way of a specimen
mouthful? The tail is not yet cooked....'1‘his is the book's motto (the secret
one), Ego non baptiso to in nomine--but make out the rest for yourself." (These
passage} are quoted =1"me Nita—PP. 108, 109, 111.) Melville must have finished
by July 20, for on this date he wrote Bentley that "I am now passing thro' the
press, the closing sheets of my new work...” (Leyda, I, 1117).

20. Metcalf, p. 1110

21. Metcalf, p. 129.

22. Leyda, I, L116.

230 Olson, p. 39s

21.. Vincent, p. 25.

25. Raymond G. Hughes, "Melville and ShakeSpeare," §_1_\_B_, VII (1932), 103.

26. F. 0. Matthiessen, American Renaissance (London, 191:1), pp. 101-102.

 

3345?;

a

U

-.-I

CHAPTER II

MELVILLE'S STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE

The tragic vision, involving as it does both the heart and the head,
the total man, was what Melville had grown to by 1850. But...Hobz-Dick
was first written from the more limited approach of the author 0
Redburn or Ihite-Jacket, only to demand a complete reshaping as a
result of Melville‘s new self-consciousness. It was as though he had
begun to construct a whaleboat, only to fiEd that what he was compelled
to create was a three-masted whaling ship.

 

"Dollars damn me," Melville complained to Hawthorne. "What I feel most
moved to write, that is banned,--it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the
other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are
‘memfi mdefine@mfimdamwmmmmhmtofllmdwfimd
men of letters: the conflict between the dollar and the creative process.
Melville's own comments attest to the severity of this struggle within himself.
As Melville began writing his whaling story, experience told him to write what
the public wanted; his soul told him to write what he felt compelled to write.
Bitter emerience had taught him the price of releasing his imagination.
flardi had not been accepted by the public. It did not pay, so after Mardi
Melville did two quick books for the market: Redburn and White—Jacket. His
fancy still had play, but the freedom of Mardi was gone. The novels were
enjoyable, adventurous, and romantic; but if we can judge from Melville's
letter to Lemuel Shaw on October 6, 18’49, he was not happy with his work:

For Redburn I anticipate no particular reception of any kind....As for
the other book [ White-Jacket J, it will be sure to be attacked in
some quarters. But no reputation that is gratifying to me, can possibly
be achieved by either of these books. They are two Jobs, which I have
done for Inoney—-being forced to it, as other men are to sawing wood.
And while I have felt obliged to refrain from writing the kind of book
I would wish to; yet, in writing these two books, I have not repressed
myself much-80 far as the are concerned; but have spoken pretty rmch
as I feel.-—Being books, then, written in this way, my only desire for

their "success" (as it is called) Springs from my pocket, 8: not from my

heart. So far as I an individually concerned, 8: independent of my
pocket, it is rm earnest desire to write those sort of books which are

said to "fail."

(11)

Public pressure and monetary needs had forced.Melville "to refrain from
writing the kind of book I would wish to." These comments to Shaw reveal that
although the dictates of Melville's pocket were in control of his pen, his
conscience was urging him."to write those sort of books which are said to
'fail.'" 'William.ShakeSpeare was to side with this inner desire in a struggle
against its enemies. ‘Mogy-Dick was to become the battleground. ShakeSpeare
became the decisive factor in the eventual victory of Melville's heart and
imagination over the "materialisms" of public demand.and making a living. This
chapter will consider, then, the importance of Shakespeare in this victory.
I
Melville began.reading Shakespeare seriously for the first time in

February, 18h9. Although he had.previously come into contact with the
dramatist, Melville enthusiastically revealed his new acquaintance with
Shakespeare in a letter to his friend.Evert Duyckinck on February 2h, 18h9:

I have been passing my'time very pleasantly here. But chiefly in lounging

on a sofa (a la the poet Gray) & reading Shakespeare. It is an edition in

glorious great type, every letter whereof is a soldier, & the top of every

"t" like a musket barrel. Dolt & ass that I am I have lived more than 29

years, &.until a few days ago, never made close acquaintance with the

divine William. Ah, he's full of sermons-on-the—mount, and gentle, aye,

almost as Jesus. I take such men to be inspired. I fancy that this

mount ['1’] Shakespeare in heaven ranks with Gabriel Raphael and Michael.

And if another‘hessiah ever comes twill be in Shakespeare's person.——I am

mad to think how'mdnute a cause has prevented me hitherto from reading

Shakespeare. But until now, any cepy that was come-atable to me, happened

to be in a vile small print unendurable to my eyes, which are tender as

young Sparrows. But chancing to fall in with this glorious edition, I

now exult over it, page afterpage.---h

So profound was'Melville's impression of the great playwright that he

attributed to him Messianic qualities at the first Opportunity he had to write
of his new discovery. His comparison of Shakespeare with Jesus shocked
Duyckinck by its seeming irreverence,5 but perhaps the reason for it was
Melville's belief in Shakespeare's ability to perceive truth, a belief he later

expressed in "Hawthorne and His Mosses." Furthermore, the comparison was also

13

the result of his immediate excitement of having found a man with ideas that
confirmed his own. In fact the letter is so noticeably pervaded with
emberant praise of ShakeSpeare that nowhere can there be found Specific
critical comment. This came later, after Melville had more time to reflect
upon his reading. The prolific marginal notes and markings Melville made in
his edition of Shakespeare attest to the sincerity of his ardor.6
Melville's statement in the letter that he "never made close acquaintance"
with Shakespeare until his readings in 1819 is undoubtedly true, but it needs
to be qualified. This was not Melville's first meeting with "divine William."
Shakespeare's plays had been in vogue on the .New York stage for many years
before Melville undertook Moby-Dick; and in view of the fact that he spent
considerable time in New York during these years, he very likely attended
many of the productions of the dramatist's plays.7 Melville also had
purchased two books concerning Shakespeare prior to his acquisition of the
seven-volumn edition. He bought a copy of ShakeSpeare through the publisher
John Wiley in New York on January 18, 181:8.8 He also purchased James Boaden's
An Inquizy into the Authenticity of Various. ..Portraits 0f ShakeSpeare. . . in
New York on June 27, law.9
Howard, in his biography of Melville, gives us information about
Melville's literary activity during his youth:
He was also surprisingly literary for a boy whose early interests were
supposed to have been entirely commercial and whose most recent studies
had been devoted to engineering. Much of his erudition was mere pose,
indicating that he made affected use of such volumes as Lindley Murray's
English Reader....But he referred knowingly to Byron, and his quotations
from £321.33 were not from"'select" passages which nefaally would be
included in collections of ShakeSpeare's "beauties."
Allusions in M3321; and Redburn suggest that Melville had a good knowledge
of several Shakespearean plays. Melville refers to AntonLand CleOpatra in

chapter 22 of Mardi.ll He alludes to Richard III in chapter 81; of Mardi:

FHF‘JSi

 

 

11;

"There be many who deny the hump, moral and physical, of Gloster Richard. "12
Macbeth is twice referred to in Ma_rdi_: to "old Scone in days of Macbeth" in
chapter 60 and to Banquo's ghost in chapter 68.13 In Redburn, chapter to, an
allusion is made to Macbeth: "Again—what blasted heath is this ?-what goblin
sounds of Macbeth's witches?"1h These references to Macbeth and Richard III,
plus the fact that Melville did not mark them in his edition of Shakespeare,
suggest that Melville previously had read or seen them presented, and did not
feel the necessity of a critical rereachng. There are also references to
Shakespeare's plqs in two letters Melville sent to John Murray}; In the
first, dated October 29, 18m, Melville alludes to The Merchant of Venice:
"—Under the circumstamces I can hardly say with Stylock that 'I am content'
énor would it be a happy allusion, while thus upon money matters, likening
myself to a Jew." In the second, written March 25, 181:8, he refers to
react:
--Hsve care, I pray, lest while thus parleying with a ghost you fall upon
some horrible evel sic], peradventurfeJ sell your soul ere you are
aware.-But in tragic phrase "no morel"-on1y glancing at the closing
sentence of your letter, I read your desire to test the corporeality of
H— M— by clapping eyes upon him in London.

Thus Melville had lmowledge of at least six plays before buying the
ecfltion with the "glorious great type." But the point of this digression is
that while Melville had at least an average knowledge of Shakespeare prior to
1810, he nevertheless felt the need for a concentrated reading and study of
most of the dramatist' e plays, as his markings show in the seven-volmne
edition.

Melville continued reading Shakespeare. After his son Malcolm was born
on February 16, 18139, Melville had twa months of leisure to make “close ac-
quaintance" with Shakespeare.16 On March 3, 1819, he again reported to
Meltinck about his reading of Shakespeare. Having had a week for study and
reflection since his first letter, Melville's comments were specific and

nnFISS?

critical. The first part of the letter is devoted to a discussion of
Emerson. Then Melville sugaresses his definition of the quality he must
have believed Shakespeare possessed:
I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it
takes a great whale to go down stairs five miles or more; and if he
don't [sic] attain the bottom, why, all the lead in Galena can't
fashial the plummet that will. I'm not talking of Mr Emerson now—but
of the whole corps of thought-divers, that have been diving 8: coming up
again with blood-shot eyes since the world began.”
Melville next reveals his new reaction to Shakespeare in language somewhat
more temperate than that of his first letter. He even feels his one age has
an advantage over Shakespeare's: .
And do not think, my boy, that because I, impulsively broke forth in
jubillations over Shakespeare, that, therefore, I am of the number of
the snobs who bum their tune of rancid fat at his shrine....
--I would to God Shakespeare had lived later, & promenaded in Broadway
....that the muzzle which all men wore an their souls in the Elizabethan
day, might not have intercepted Shakespeare from articulation. Now I
hold it a verity, that even Shakespeare, was not a frank man to the
uttermost. And, indeed, who in this tolerant universe is, or can be?
But the Declaration of Independence makes a d:!.fference.18
In this way, Melville, reaching a more mature level in his attitude
toward Shakespeare, qualified and limited the 'jubillations" of the first
letter. His feeling that I'the muzzle which all men wore on their souls in
the Elizabethan day...intercepted Shakespeare from articulation" shows a
critical attitude not present in the first letter when he had exclaimed that
“the divine William" was "full of semons-on-the-mount." Melville no longer
was "of the number of the snobs who burn their tune of rancid fat at his
shrine." He realized that Shakespeare, too, was subject to the frailty of
his times, that he was only human. Like Melville, Shakespeare, bound by
his times , often refrained from writing what he wanted to ; but fortunately
not altogether, Melville later intimated in his essay on Hawthorne, for
the filglish dramatist, by perceiving truth, ”though it be covertly and by

snatches," had transcended his times. Thus though Melville admired

16

Shakespeare's truth-diving, he regretted that it came only sporadically.
And why not? That is what troubled him most about his own writing. Melville
had made the first important step in his struggle against his "bad angel"—
the financial and public pressures which held him from writing the kind of
book he desired to write. Melville had found a basis for kinship with the
great Elizabethan. He had begun to relate his own needs and preoccupations
to his study of Shakespeare.

In reading the plays , Melville not only discovered an affinity between
his problem and Shakespeare's, but also found an optimism in his belief that
Shakespeare would have been less handicapped in Melville' s day in eatpressing
truth. This optimism, derived from his reflections on his readings, Mumford

3333:

...prepared the way for Hawthorne in Melville's mind. If what one could

not quite get from Shakespeare on the printed page one might get

directly from the shy man himself, what great good fortune to find a

similar person, alive and abroad in one's own century!19

There are two other records of Melville's reactions to Shakespeare

before the publication of his review of Hawthome's Moss». The first is a
record in his 'Journal“ of attending a presentation of Othello in London on
November 19, 18149:

...{Langford & I went to the Haymarket. Full house. Went into the

cri ics' beams. Times" & "Herald" men there. McGready painted

hideously.. Did'nt like him very much upon the whole—bad voice, it

seemed. James Wallack, Iago. very good. Miss Re[y_7nolds Desdemona—

very pretty. Horrible Roderigo.20
Second, while reading The Poetical Works of Thomas Chattertm in January,
1850, Melville checks and crosses on page c1 of the uIl'ltroduction": ". ..and
though Shakspeare must ever remain lmapproachable..." and comments: "Cant.
No man 'must ever remain unapproachable.'"21 This is further proof that
Melville had prepared his mind for the admirable impression he was to have

of Hawthorne when he reviewed his Mosses.

i‘iwiFL'i-YS

17

II
One year after he began reading Shakespeare seriously, Melville started
Moby-Dick. In spite of the optimism he had expressed in his second letter to
Duyckinck in March of the previous year, he began his whaling story in the

same manner as Redburn and White-Jacket. Financial needs and public taste

 

for adventurous romances, the motivating forces behind Redburn and White-
Jacket, retained their grasp upon Melville at the inception of Many-Dick.
An event soon after the March 3 letter explains how he lost the glow of opti-
mism he had exhibited in it. On March 15, 181:9, Richard Bentley published
M,” the first of Melville's books containing a theme of a spiritual
quest for truth and the key to the mystery of life. Melville had taken his
J
first "dive," at he too came up with "blood-shot eyes," for Mardi was
attacked from almost every quarter. Th*e__ithenaeum in London on March 21; said:
On opening this strange book, the reader will be at once struck by the
affectation of its style, in which are mingled mam madnesses....If this
book be meant as a pleasantry, the mirth has been oddly left out—if as
an allegory, the key of the casket is "buried in the ocean desp"-if as a

romance, it fails from tediousnes s—if as a prose-poem, it is chargeable
with puerility.23

 

The Examiner in London on March 31 exclaimed: “From first to last it is an
outrageous fiction; a transcendental Gulliver, or Robinson Crusoe run mad."2h
Blackwood's Edinburgl Magazine remarked in August:
This young gentleman has most completely disappointed us....we...were
glad to hope that Types and Omoo were but an earnest of even better
things. kid, therefore, sadly were we disgusted on perusal of a
rubbishing rhapsody, entitled Mardi, and a ngage Thither.... Why, what
trash is all tidal—ungled, too, with attempts at a Rabeldsian vein,
and with strainings at smartness—the style of the whole being affected,
pedantic, and wearisome exceedingly.25
Such adverse criticisms must have discouraged Melville considerably, and the
memory of them must have lingered in his mind as he began Mom-Dick.
By May 1, 1850, Melville, at the half way mark in his whaling book, was

having difficulty with his material: "blubber is blubber.u But he was

18

determined "to give the truth of the thing.” The struggle of writing
Mom-Dick had begun, for the kind of book he was writing blocked his search
for truth. It was like the other books, which, he told Dana, were written
"alinost entirely for 'lucre'-—-by the Job, as a woodsawyer saws wood. "26
Still we can aséume that Melville continued with his original conception of
the novel, for his June 27 letter to Bentley, in its account of Hoyt-Dick,
gives no indication that he had altered his plans. The letter also shows
Melville under financial pressure and, therefore, audous to complete
negotiations for publishing the novel in late autumn, further indications
that Melville had not changed his plane.”

In mm, 1850, Melville arrived at Pittsfield to spend the summer
at Robert Melvill's "Broadhall," a farm-inn.28 Since Melville spent much
of his time visiting friends and touring the county in late July and early
August, he probably suspended most of his work on the whaling book. It is
possible, however, that he had brought his manuscript to near completion
before he arrived at Pittai'ield.29

m July 18, the day Melville, accmrpanied by Robert Melvill, set out
on a tour of Southern Berkshire County, he received from his aunt, Mary Ann
Melvill, a copy of Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse. Since he did not
return from his viewing excursion until Saturday night, July 20, he probably
did not begin reading it until after this date. After reading the 1913.22)
Melville, profomdly stirred by the realization that Hawthorne, like
Shakespeare, had penetrated into the truth of existence, began writing
"Hawthorne and His Mosses' on August 11.30 Evert myckinck, after nearly a
two—week stay with Melville at “Broadball,” returned to New York on August
12, presumably with Melville's review,31 whose authorship Melville attributed
to ”a Virginian Spending July in Vermont.” Dlyckinck published it in the
Literary World, in two installments, August 17 and August 214.

l9

Melville had written Shaw on October 6, 18119, that it was his "earnest
desire to write those sort of books which are said to 'fail.” In his essay
on Hawthorne's Mas-gag Melville declares his belief in the right to fail and
perhaps his decision to rewrite Mom-Dick: ”He who has never failed somewhere,
that man cannot be great. inlure is the true test of greatness.'32 Since
Kelville finished the essay so that Duyckinck could take it with him when he
left for New York, August 12, he undoubtedly began the revision of his whaling
novel soar after that date. Olson, however, conjectures that Melville began
his revision a few days after July 18; 33 but a later date is more probable,
for Duycldnck would certainly have nrentioned this when he wrote to his brother
about Melville‘s novel a: August 7. If Melville had begun his revision before
his friend arrived on August 2, Dayekinck, it seems likely, would have
learned of it in five days. In fact, because Duycldnck makes no mention of
it at anytime during his stay at "Broadhall,' we have another indicatiar
that Melville undertook his revision after August 12, the date Dayclcinck left
for New York.

III

Melville's discovery in early 181;? that Shakespeare had intuitively
penetrated into the meaning of the universe led to the self-realisation of
his own desireto probe into the nature of things—to write the kind of book
that "instilledI His letters to Shaw and Dana—and his review of Hawthorne-
testify to this desire. When he read the 292.19.!) Melville found an incen-
tive for his desire in the perception that Hawthorne, his contemporary, had
sought intuitive truth as had Shakespeare. Shakespeare confirmed and brought
into clearer focus Melville's own vision and gave him the key to its expres-
sion; and Hawthorne, by showing him that it could be done in his our time in
prose fiction, crystallized his determination to employ in Mobz—Dick what he

20

had learned from flukespeare. Hawthorne's Mom and the edition of
Shakespeare were perhaps the most inportant books he ever acquired, for
they provided the material for the solution of Melville's creative problem.
Melville's essay on the M__g_s_s_e_s_ is a testimony to his profound response
to Hawthorne, but it is much more than this: it is a docrnnent of what
Melville believed to be the greatness of Shakespeare, it is a declaration or
his kinship with Shakespeare mid Hawthorne as ”thought-chvers,“ and, perhaps
most of all, it is a revelation of the critic himself. After concluding
that “it is that blackness in Hawthome...that‘ so fixes and fascinates me,“

Melville reveals in the essay what attracts and repells him in Shakespeare:

..ethis blackness it is that furnishes the infinite obscure of his back-
ground,-that background, against which makSpeare plays his grandest
ccnceits, the things that have made for ShakSpeare his loftiest but most
circumscribed renown, as the profoundest of thinkers. For by ptdloso-
phers Shakspeare is not adored as the great man of tragedy and comedy.
-—"Off with his head; so much for Buckingham!" This sort of rant, inter-
lined by another hand, brings down the house,--those mistaken souls, who
dream of Shakspeare as a mere man of Richard-the—Third humps and Macbeth
daggers. But it is those deep far-away things in him; those occasional
flashings-forth of the intuitive Truth in him; those short, quick prob-
ings at the very axis of realityg—these are the things that make
Shakspeare, Shakepeare. Through the mouths of the dark characters of
Hamlet, Timon, Lear, and Iago, he craftily says, or sometimes insinuates
the things which we feel to be so terrifically true, that it were allbut
madness for any good man, in his own proper character, to utter, or even
hint of them. Tormented into deeperation, Lear, the frantic king, tears
off the mask, and speaks the same madness of vital truth. But, as I
before said, it is the least part of genius that attracts admiration.
And so, much of the blind, unbridled admiration that has been heaped
upon Shakspeare, has been lavished upon the least part of him. And few
of his endless connentators and critics seem to have remembered, or even
perceived, that the immediate products of a great mind are not so great
as that undeveloped and sometimes undevelopable yet dimly-discernible
greatness, to which those imediate products are but infallible indices.
In Shakspeare's tomb lies infinitely more than Shakspeare ever wrote.
And if I maglify Shakspeare, it is not so much for what he did do as for
what he did not do, or refrained from doing. For in this world of lies,
Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woocnands; and only
by omning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakspeare and other
masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth,--even though it be covertly
and by snatches.3h

Thus, Melville concludes, it was through "blacknes s," the dark mood of
Hawthorne and Shakespeare, that "vital truth" could be reached.

21

This ability to perceive truth and reality, like flashes in the dark-
ness, was to Melville the key to Shakespeare's greatness. Evidence that
this is what inpressed him deeply can be found in his markings and comments
in his edition of Shakespeare. He was attracted to the “madness of vital
truth," the 'cxmning glimpses" of reality, in act I, scene iv, of King Lear
where the Fool reverses what Lear did to his daughters to emphasize the
truth: “Why, this fellow has banished two en's daughters, and did the third
a blessing against his will...." He underlined the " -discernible"
insight of the Fool's rem-k that "Truth ‘3 a dog must to kennel...." He
triple—checked Enobarbus's comment to Antony in act II, scene ii: "That
truth should be silent I had almost forgot.”

These "dark” flashes of intuitive truth, which came ucovertly and by
snatches ," were often overlooked, Melville believed, in reading Shakespeare;
instead, it was the ”popular“ aspects of Shakespeare that attracted so many
worshipers. Pondering to the popular Melvilleelmew from his own experience;
Shakespeare knew it too. Hawthorne, fortunately, had avoided it, as Melville
made clear in another passage in "Hawthorne and His Masses":

But if this view Shakespeare as a great truth-teller] of the all-popular
Shakspeare be sel taken by his readers, and if very few who extol him
have ever read him deeply, or perhaps, only have seen him on the tricky
stage (which alone made, and is still making his mere mob renown)-—if few
men have time, or patience, or palate, for the spiritual truth as it is
in that great genius;--it is then no matter of surprise, that in a con-
temporaneous age, Nathaniel Hawthorne is as yet almost utterly mistaken
among men....But unlike Shakspeare, who was forced to the contrary course
-by circumstances, Hawthome...refrains from all the popularizing noise
and show of broad farce mid blood-besmeared tragedy; content with the
still, rich utterance of a great intellect in repose....3

Melville, noting the Shakespearean qualities in Hawthorne, declares
that America, too, can produce great miters-—Shakespeam's standard can be
approached, if not excelled:

Some may start to read of Shakapeare and Hawthorne on the same page....

But Shakspeare has been approached. There are minds that have gone as
far as Shakspeare into the universe. And hardly a mortal man, who , at

22

some time or other, has not felt as great thoughts in him as any you will

find in Hamlet....Believe me, my friends, that men, not very much inferior

to Shakspeare, are this day being born on the banks of the Ohio....The

great mistake seems to be, that even with those Americans who look for-

ward to the coming of a great literary genius among us, they somehow

fancy he will come in the costume of Queen Elizabeth's day; be a writer

of dramas founded upon old kglish history or the tales of Boccaccio.

lhereas, great geniuses are parts of the times, they themselves are the

times, and possess a correspondent coloring....Nor must we forget that, in

his om lifetime, Shakspeare was not Shakspeare, but ally Master William

Shakspeare of the shremi thriving business firm of Condell, Shakspeare &

Co., prwrietors of the Globe theatre in London....Now I do not say that ,
Nathaniel of Salem is a greater than William of Avon, or as great. But the

difference between the two men is by no means inme Is. Not a very an
great deal more, and Nathaniel were verily William.3

 

 

Thus Melville's perception that "great geniuses are parts of the times"
elevated him above the infirmities of those writers who become mere worshipers
and imitators of the great artists of the past. He knew that his whaling
novel must "possess a correspondent coloring.’

Whether Melville 's critical judgments of Shakespeare are right or wrong
is of little consequence here. The important thing is that this critique
reveals the workings of Melville's mind at a critical point in his artistic
career. llelville discovered that Shakespeare was concerned, as he was, with
the “dark," irrational, and ambiguous truths of existence.

Having found in the English plqwright a justification of his own creed,
he made another crucial discovery in his mcognitim that if Hawthorne had
approached the heights of excellence achieved by Shakespeare, then perhaps he,
too, could attain those heights in the nearly—completed Kohl-Dick. Deter-
mined to get at the truth in his novel, Melville declared in his review, "You
must have plenty of sea-room to tell the truth in...."37 He felt he had an
advantage, for Shakespeare—he had expressed in his March 3 letter to
Duycldndc—had been restricted in his articulation, whereas the Declaration
of Indqaendence had given him-Herman Melville—freedom of expression.
Shakespeare, living in a monarchical society, had been forced to muzzle his
soul. Melville criticized the dramatist, therefore, for not being "a frank

23

man to the uttemost," a criticism he applied to binself in a letter to
Daycldnck, December 11;, 18149: I'What a madness & anguish it is, that an author
can never—under no conceivable circumstances—be at all frank with his read-
ers.“38 Yet Melville felt a democratic society, open and flexible, made a

difference.
IV

The essay on the losses shows that Melville did not find in Shakespeare
the bases for his tragic. vision of life; he had the foundations for it within
himself. Instead Melville found a: affimaticn in Shakespeare of his own
broochngs—broochngs that led him in Hopi-Dick to declare, Lear-like, “Though
in many of its aspects the visible world seems formed in love, the invisible
spheres were formed in fright)” Melville saw mirrored in the plays a reflec-
tim of his own concern with darlcness and truth. Shakespeare gave direction
and focus to that reflection. Olson emphasizes this when he says:

Shakespeare' s plays became a great metaphor by which Melville objectified
his on original vision. Ihat was solvent within Melville, Shakespeare,
in the manner of a catalytic agent, precipitated.

Melville reached the taming point in mid-August. Those motives which
lead to "mere mob renom' were cast aside, and Roby-Diek—the second Molly-Dick
--took shape. Helville retained his account of the whaling industry for
ballast, but “probing at the very axis of reality," he made not merely a
whaling adventure but a quest for ultimate truth, with Ahab, the hunter, and
Moby Dick, the hunted. The powers of Melville's genius had been released, as
he made clear in his essay on the Masses:

...I somehow cling to the strange fancy, that, in all men hiddenly reside
certain wondrous, occultprOperties—as in some plants and minerals-
which by some happy but very rare accident (as bronze was discovered by
the melting of iron and brass at the burning of Corinth) may chance to
be called forth here on earth.h1

That "happy but very rare accident" was Melville's consort with Shakespeare.
The chance but timely meeting between them ignited a Corinth and out of the

fusion came Mo_lgz--D:|.<:k."2

21:

Notes for Chapter II

1. Howard P. Vincent, The Trying-Out of Moby—Dick (Boston, 191:9), p. 32.

2. Hannah Melville: Representative Selections, ed. Willard Thorp (New York,
1938), p. fill—hereafter cited as Tharp.

3. Jay Leyda, The Melvillejpg (New York, 1951), I, 316. The brackets are
ICYda'Se '

h. Thorp, p. 370. The brackets are Thorpe's. Metcalf, p. 58, has "moment"
instead of "momt," which appears to fit the context better. The circum-
stances leading to Melville's purchase of this "glorious edition" are not
knom. Perhaps his attendance of Fanny Kemble Butler's readings of Macbeth,
February 12, 18149, and Othello, February 19, motivated him to purchase a set
of Shakespeare's plays. Melville in his letter of February 21:, told Duyemnck:
"Mrs Butler too I have heard at her Readings. She makes a glorious Lady
Macbeth, but her Desdemona seems like a boarding school miss" (Thorp, p. 371).

5. See Melville's letter to Duyckinck, March 3, 1819, in Tharp, p. 372.

6. The markings and comments also give insight into what aSpects of the
dramatist's thought and art most appealed to Melville. For example, Melville
sidelines Hamlet's famous words—"Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is
nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so; to me it is a prison"—
and comments: "Here is forcibly shown the great Montaignism of Hamlet."
Information for the discussions in this thesis of the mrldngs and comments
Melville made in his seven-volume edition of Shakespeare has been adhered
from the following sources: Jay Leyda's The Melville ng, Lawrence Thompson's
Melville's Quarrel With God, Leon Howard's Harman Melvilg, Vincent and
Mansfield's edition of Mob -Dick, F.0. Matthiessen's American Renaissance and
Charles Olson's Call Me Is%ael. The sources for this materiEE will no
cited hereafter. MSlvilIe' 3 edition, entitled The Dramatic Works of William
Shakes care, with a Life of the Poet-Land NotesIUriginal and Selected. u,
was pu‘ lished, 1837, in Boston by Hilliard and Gray. flincluded in the edition
are "The Life of Killian Shakespe are," by Dr. Symmons, and numerous notes by
Dr. Samuel Johnsm. In the various sources of Melville's annotations of
this edition, I have found many discrepancies in the capitalization and
punctuation of Shakespeare's text. Therefore, for consistency when quoting
from Shakespeare‘s plays, I have used The Complete Works of ShakeSpearg, ed.
Hardin Craig (New York, 1951), which follows the text of the Globe edition.
Merton M. Sealts, Jr., Melville's Readin : A Check-List of Books Owned and
Borrowed, offprinted from Harvard Libr Biz—fietln‘ , II , III, IV (19118-1955),
No. , notes that Melvilleu edition 0% Shfispeare is in the Harvard
College Library. ‘

7. Raymond G. Hughes, "Melville and Shakespeare," SAB VII (1932), 101;.

8. Leyda, I, 269. Merrel R. Davis, in Melville's : A Chartless
3m (New Haven, 1952), p. 62, n. 6, conjeFtures—that theThakespeare
volume may be the edition of Shakespeare's poems among his set of Cooke
editions, The Poetical Works of Shakespeare 1 with the Life of the Author
which is inscribed my Melville Tam her brother Herman m el ay 19,
1862." It is full of marginal underlinings, Davis notes, that scan to be
Melville's and not Fanny's. Davis suggests Melville owned the book long
before 1862 and that after giving it away during the move from Pittsfield,
he later replaced it with another copy, _Shakespeare's Sonnets, which he
acquired on January 20, 1871 (Leyda, II, 718, says January 15, 1871).

Davis cites as evidence for this contention the allusion in Mardi, which
refers to ShakeSpeare as poet rather than as playwright: "...and high over
my ocean, sweet Shakespeare soars , like all the larks of the Spring."

 

 

 

 

 

 

2S

 

Notes for Chapter E

9. Leyda, I, 278. Incidently, Melville's continued appreciation of
Shakespeare can be seen in his use of Shakespeare books for gifts. In
addition to the copy he presented his sister Fanny, on December 25, 1873,
he gave his daughter Francis Pearls of Shakespeare. 1; and on May 22, 1877,
he gave his daughter Bessie L Book of- Reference to Remarkable Passages in
Shakes ears, by Susanna Beever (Leyda, II, 75577 762).

I5. Eon Howard, Herman Melville (Berkeley, 1951), p. 15.

ll. Moby—Dick gm. Luther 3. Mansfield and Howard P. Vincent
(New York, 1952 ), p. 783—hereafter cited as Moby-Dick.

12. Mob -Dick, p. 71:8. .

13. Elm p. 676.

11;. mils—612’ X... p. 676.

15. Davis, pp. 213-2114.

16. Eleanor Melville Metcalf, ngflman Melville (Cambridge, Mass” 1953), P. 57.

17. Tharp, p. 372. ConcerningThis passage, Stanley Geist, in Herman
Melville: The Tragic Vision and The Heroic Ideal (Cambridge, Mass. , 1939),
pp. 22-23, comments: Wdive, to plunge to the blackest depths of existence,
he believed to be the noblest way of life....and Shakespeare, who was the
deepest diver of them all, sat enthroned among Melville's demigods."

18o Thom, Pe 372a

19. Lewis mmford, Herman Melville (New York, 1929), p. 130.

20. Leyda, I, 331;. Mélville recorded in his “Journal" on December 17,
1819: "Then thro' Farrington Street (where I bought pocket Shakspeare 8w)..."
(Leyda, I, 3119).. His list in the "Journal" of books purchased on his trip
includes the entry, "2 plays of Shakespeare," which probably refers to his
purchase of December 17 (Sealts, No. 1163). Perhaps Melville read Shakespeare
again at this time.

21. Leyda, I, 363—361;.

22. Leyda, I, 292.

23. Leyda, I, 293.

2h. hyda! I! 29Se

25e Leydfi, I, 3110

26. Leyda, I, 371;.

27o “Qua-1t" Pe 77a

28. The biographical data for this and the following paragraphs in this
section, unless otherwise noted, has been taken from Leyda, I, 378-390.

29. See chapter I, page 9, note 15.

30. Geoffrey Stone, in Melville (New York, 19119), pp. 139-1110, notes:
Hawthorne's characterization of the essay as a banquet too lavish in its
hospitality for him to accept everything offered in it is a sounder judgment
of what Melville had done than Melville's judgment of what Hawthorne had
done....'1'he very fact that Melville chose Masses from an Old Manse, which
had appeared in 18h6, instead of the just-published Scarlet fetter for his
encomium is puzzling...thaugh the lesser work may have been chosen because
a lesser work is often more attractive to the critic with a 'message'--which
in this case concerned, though unconsciously, the critic himself." Stone's
comment is suggestive, but although I agree with him that the essay is a
"message," I do not believe that Melville's choice of the M9533: for his
review is puzzling. Melville probably chose it because he had Just received
it as a gift on July 18. Whether Melville read The Scarlet Letter before his
review is not lmown. We do know that Melville purchased a copy? it some—
time later, in July, 1870 (Sealts, No. 253). Tharp, p. 122, comnents that
"Melville evidently took great pains with the article, rewriting a number of

f‘l-a' Pf}

 

 

 

26

Notes for Chapter II

 

passages entirely, adding new material and altering many words and phrases
to better the writing or modify the tone of what he had originally put down."
In view of Thorp's description of the manuscript and in view of its length
(over 7,000 words), it may be doubtful that Melville began on August 11,
which would have given him less than two days to write and revise it.
(Duyckinck probably left early in the afternoon, August 12- he had written
his wife that he would an'ive "between 3 8t 1; o'clock P.M." Since Dlycldnck
did not mentim that Melville was writing the review in any of his letters,
including the last on August 9, written evidently in the morning, it seems
plausible that Melville began the review either later that same day or
ADM 10e ‘ I ~

31. Metcau', Pe- 87e MetcaJI'B observation appears to be correct.
Melville, in a letter of August 16, wrote to Duyckinck that he had received
in Duyckinck's August 13 letter an advance copy of the Literary World, con-
taining the first installment of his review of Hawthornas Masses. (Leyda,

I, 388-389). Therefore, Duyckinck must have taken the manuscript with him
when he left Pittsfield on August 12.

32. now, p. 338.

33. Charles Olson, Call Me Ishmael (New York, 19147), p. 38.

314. Tharp, pp. 333-3314.

35. Tharp, pp. 3311-335. Melville was primarily attracted to Shakespeare
as a literary artist and philosopher, not as the master of "the tricky
stage ," although the tremendous force generated by Shakespeare at this time
caused Melville to employ in Moby-Dick many of Shakespeare's dramatic
techniques.

36. Tharp, pp. 335-336. Geist, pp. 63-611, notes: "How haunting, how
insatiable was his wish to speak to another hlman being across the eternity
of space which encompassed his derelict planet, one comprehends perhaps
most of all in the essay on 'Hawthorne and His Masses, " where Melville
created his own image, named it Nathaniel Hawthorne, and stretched out his
arms to embrace it in a fraternal compact with himself and ShakeSpeare.
Eventually, of course, the illusim of Hawthorne crumbled before the reality,
and Melville was left to consort with the ghosts of men who had died
hundreds of years before—they alone (with Shakespeare at the head) affording
him that sense of spiritual affinity which he sought vainly in the universe
Of the living." ‘

37o Thom: P0 3360

Ba'mualf'p' 71' 1k thl th 1 ha b tak r

39. All quotations from Mobz-Dic in ' s es 3 ve een en ram

Mob -Dick or The Whale eds. Mans ield and Vincent (New York, 1952).
1%. Olson, "Lear and Molly-Dick,“ Twice a Yegrg, I (1938), 165.
1.1.1. Thorp, pe 3h5e
112. Olson, 9311 Me Ishmael, p. 110.

 

27

mm III

SHAKESPEARE AND THE "SECOND" MOBY-DICK
It was Melville's good fartme, at a time when all his circumstances
combined to make him a sensitive and thoughtful reader, to have his
attention directed to the one author who could justify his sensitivity
yet allow him to pursue his thoughts in terms of people rather than
abstract ideas. Shakespeare gave him the most important direction he
received during his journey in the world of the hand}

The last chapter traced the growth of Shakespeare's influence in
Melville and postulated that it was instrumental in leading him to recast
his original version of Maggy-Dick into a vast and more comprehensive kind of
novel. If we proceed under the assumption that Melville made extensive
revisions under the spell of a new creative energy released by his reading
of the Elglish dranatist, then it follows that an eram’natian of the final
version of Roby-Dick should prove that the impact of Shakespeare was signif-
icant an the navel.

Ma ~Dick confirms, I believe, what the notes in Melville's Shakespeare
edition and what his comments in the letters to Duyckinck and in the review
of Huthame's 323.333. suggest—that Shakespearean material appears abundantly
in the navel, not only in allusions, but also in lamguage, style, stmcture,
idea, and characterization. The present chapter will consider internal evi-
dence from Nagy-Dick to support 11w previous contention, based on external
evidence, that Itchy-Dick after August 7 underwent extensive revision.
Following Stavrart' s study of the remants of the old Nagy-Dick onto which the
new Maggy-Dick was spliced,2 I shall try to demonstrate that much of the
substance in the revised novel is Shakespearean in origin and inspiration.
Chapter I; will treat specifically the impact of Shakespeare's creative energy
upon Melville's art, and the last chapter will analyze Melville's debt to

Shakespeare the tragedian.

 

28
I

Stewart, noting sharp differences between the Opening of Mammal: and
the rest of the novel, has recently made a study of the implications suggested
by this contrast. He concludes that Mag-Dick is essentially in three parts:
(1) chapters 1-15, which represent an original story, slightly revised; (2)
chapters 16-22, which represent the original story with some highly important
revision; (3) chapters 23—"Epilogue," which represent Mag-Dick as Melville
recanceived it, but with certain rexmants of the original story, somewhat
revised. Stewart labels the original story DMD, the third section as MD,
and chapters 16—22 as Transition or UMD. He first presents several details
in UMD (including the Transition) which are incmsistent with MD.

1. Cape Horn is mentioned four times (once in chapter 10 and three times
in chapter 16). Although a good reason for going by the Cape of Good
Hope is given in chapter hh, this does not justify the original decep-
tion of the reader.

2. Chapter 19 implies that Ahab's niclmame is "Old Thunder." But in MD
he is called this only once when the occurence of thunder seems to
suggest the name (chapter 119). In MD, on the other hand, he is called
"the old Mogul“ in chapters 39, to, 14,3, and 99.

3. In chapter 19 Elijah's description of Ahab—"But you must jump when he
gives an order. Step and growl; growl mid go—that' s the word with
Captain Ahab."-indicates an ordinary, harsh sea captain, but is not
suggestive of Ahab's most characteristic traits in MD.

1;. After being kicked by Peleg, Ishmael says, "That was my first kick"
(chapter 22). This suggests the original story was to be marked by
brutality, but Istmxael receives no more kicks in the novel as we know
it. The only tyranny in the final novel is Ahab's mental tyranny.

5. The fact that Queequeg dies when the ship sinks only vaguely harmonizes
with Ishmael's statement in chapter 13 that Queequeg was to take "his
last long dive." Since Ahab's death seems to resemble such a dive,
perhaps the manner of Ahab's death is taken from an original plan for
Queoqueg's death.

6. In chapter 3 the men of the Gr us, of whom Bulldngton is one, are
said to have returned from "a tfie years' voyage," but Bulkington is
said to have I'just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage" in
chapter 23. "The building-up from a three—to a four-year voyage is
characteristic," Stewart asserts, "of the heightened effects of MD."3

7. Although the jaw-bone tiller of the Pegod is described in ihapter 16,
the spokes of a wheel are mentioned in chapters bl and 118.

29

Stewart thm considers what he feels are more important inconsistencies
between UMD and MD, as, for exanple, the shifts in the conception and
function of various characters. Ishmael is the central character and nar-
rator in the first fifteen chapters of Moby-Dick. “He is altogether of
flesh-and-blood," remarks Stewart, "seeing things that an ordinary person may
be expected to know."5 In MD Ishamel ceases to be a character at all, becom-
ing merely the device by which Melville presents the story. At times in MD
Ishmael is tmdistinguishable from Melville himself; he even records what Ahab
and others think. Except for a few passages, Ishmael loses his identity as a
realistic figure in MD.6 Queequeg in chapters l-l5 is central to the action
and is being established for the hero's part when he saves the man who has
fallen overboard. Queequeg in UMD appears to be a key man in the action, but
in MD he practically disappears, except for the heroic saving of Tashtego and
the incident of his coffin. Thus this build-up appears to be waste. Stewart
feels that “Ahab is the obvious counterpart of Queequeg.” Referring to the
passage in chapter 16 in which Ahab is compared to the Biblical. Ahab, who
because of hie wickedness was slain and had his blood licked by dogs, Stmrt
notes thattheAhabinMDisnotas bloody oraswickedasfliabinthegfllg.
Stewart suggests uthat Ahab was given that name in mm in order that something
about his character in the later part of the story should be suggested. When
the ending of the book was changed, the name was preserved but the character

no longer conformed to it."8

Bulkington is described in some detail in chapter 3, but he is introduced
curiously: "...since the sea—gods had ordained that he should soon become my
shipmate (though but a sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is con-
cerned) , I will thereby venture upon a little description of him." Stewart
notes the oddity of an author in one sentence introducing a character, and
telling at the same time there is no purpose in introducing him. The

30

explanation that Stewart suggests is that Bulkington was destined for a real
part in UMD, but became unnecessary in MD. Having already mitten the
description, and reluctant to throw it my, Helville, in revising, merely
inserted the words in parentheses and let the description stand. Although
BuJJCington appears in chapter 23, he there serves as an allegorical figure.

Stubb and Flask seem to undergo shifts of character between UMD and MD.
Stubb suggests a stub, that is, a short, stocky person; but there is no sug-
gestion in MD that he is of this sort. Flask suggests a man who drinks too
much, but this kind of character is not revealed in MD. Stubb is described
as I'learned" and "old" and is said to be the brother-in-law of Charity, but
nothing is made of these facts. In chapter 72, "The Manny-Rope," he is
referred to as "no less a man than Stubb." These facts, Stewart thinks,
suggest that perhaps Stubb played a more important part in UMD and may have
been patterned after a real mate on the Acushnet, the ship Melville was on
when he went whaling. Moreover, Stewart notes, Flask seems to have taken over
the stublike quality of Stubb, being described as short and nicknamed King-13111.9

Stewart points out other changes between UMD and MD besides shifts in
characterization, particularly the differences in style and atmosphere. "mm
is plain, em prosy and colloquial,‘ observes Stewart.10 Such dialectal
equressions as says I, sag he, and thinks I occur not only in conversation,
but also in the narrative itself. These colloquielisms are not characteristic
of MD, being wholly lacking, Stewart observes. Moreover, UMD lacks almost
entirely the poetic elements of style which MD has, such as apostrOphe,
personification, and figurative language in general, including the Homeric
simile.ll

The general atmosphere in UMD differs consideraby from LED. The first

fifteen chapters reveal a realistic, homey, even folksy atmosphere. In
addition, Stewart observes that Ishmael remarks in chapter 1 that he cannot

31

tell "why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down
for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for
magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel
comedies, and jolly parts in farces." This description, Stewart believes,
while applying well enough to UMD, certainly does not fit MD, which is
notable for its lack of shebbiness and for its approach to both epic and
tragic grandeur.12 The creation of a more magnificent atmosphere occurs in
ID only. It is in MD that the information on cetology has been included, for
example, in order to elevate the whaling voyage into something more magnifi-
cent. Though a few philosophical passages occur in UMD and Father Mapp1gt3
sermon cmtains allegory, it is not until MD that allegory, symbolism, and
philosophical observations begin to play a dominant part.

Stewart next considers the transitional chapters, presenting at the same
time soul conjectures as to the actual procedure of the writing of Roby-Dick.
Stewart, accepting Ibyckinck's statement that the novel was ”mostly done" by
August, 1850, believes that Melville wrote a large part of OMB subsequent to
chapter 15. When he decided to revise the novel, he went back over the
manuscript trying to salvage as much as he could of what he had already com-
posed. Having decided to use the first fifteen chapters as they stood,
Stewart believes, Kelville then undertook to splice to them his new material,
as chapters 16—22 illustrate. llelville retained his original manuscript in
these chapters, but revised it extensively. Stewart remarks : “We can hardly
think that he closed his description of his original £03293 with the philo-
sophical commentary so unlike UMD: 'L noble craft, but somehdl’ e most
melancholy: All noble things are touched with that. "'13 After chapter 22
Melville wrote essentially a new Nagy-Dick, only here and there incorporating

what he had alreacbr written.
Of these seven transitional chapters, only three seem to show important

32

revisions, in Stewart's opinion. The first of these is chapter 16, which in
spite of revision still suggests U'MD in several details. Cape Hom, for
example, is mentioned three times concerning the route of the ship.. Captain
Peleg, speaking of the loss of Lhab's leg, says that it was torn off by "the
monstrousest pmcetty,‘ which does not necessarily suggest the white whale
or its allegorical and symbolical qualities.“ If the u'IIi'niteness of the
whale," Stewart feels, had been established in Melville's mind when he
originally wrote the passage, he would have had Peleg make at least some
reference, however obscure, to it. Also, Ishmael still functions as a
character in this chapter, not as the mouthpiece of the author. (h the
otherhand, Stewart finds several new qualities in the chapter, not typical of
mm. The style, for instance, changes; the more formal. egg; is employed
instead of the colloquial SEEP—2:. of the DMD chapters.

The most significant evidence of revision in chapter 16, Stewart stresses,
is the paragraph he labels the “insight passage." He quotes it in full:

So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture
names—a singularly common fashion on the island—and in childhood naturally
imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker idiom; still,
from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent
lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand
bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poet-
ical Pagan Rom. And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior
natural force, with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also
by the stillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest
waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led
to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature's sweet
or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding
breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental advantages,
to learn a bold and nervous lofty language—that man makes one in a whole
nation's census—a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies.
Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by
birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful over-ruling
morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great are
made so through a certain morbidness.

Stewart believes that this passage introduces most of the ideas which appear

in Lhab's character later in the novel. It also suggests the special qualities
which the final Moby-Dick contains. Stewart notes that there is no connection

33

between this passage and what comes before and after it. The "insight
passage," beginning with a grammatically incomplete sentence, is introduced
with the words so that, but it seems in no way the result of what has been
said before. Stewart, admitting it to be a flight of fancy, conjectures that
the passage, remarkably isolated and unconnected, may be interpreted as a
kind of memorandum which a writer copies down when he suddenly discerns the
fundamental objectives of his novel. Stewart extends this supposition to its
logical conclusion by saying that this passage "may represent the immediate
result of that moment of insight which made him finally decide to abandon UMD,
and sent him back to Splice MD to U'MD and go ahead and finish Moby-Dick."]5

Chapter 19 also suggests MD in the shadowy figure of Elijah, but in
general the chapter seems UMD. Ahab is portrayed in the chapter, Stewart
notes, in the manner of the customary brutal, even murderous sea captain.
Details of Ahab's previous life are twice briefly mentioned in this chapter,
presented, furthermore, in such a manner as to lead the reader to expect to
hear of them later-—but they are never afterwards emlained. They suggest
once more, Stewart says, that the novel at first pointed in another direction.
Chapter 21 again contains elements of old and new. The foreshadowings of
Lhab's Imusual boat crew and the reintroduction of Elijah suggest the atmos-
phere of MD. However, Elijah's hint that he may see Ishmael again before the
grand jury never finds fulfillment in the book. Stewart also feels the low
comedy of Queequeg's sitting on the sleeping sailor is in the atmosphere of
U'MD.

Stewart identifies several inStances in MD where Melville apparently
incorporated old material in the revised version, as in chapter 14,8 which
suggests UMD in its atmosphere. Ishmael is very real, getting wet and com-

plaining about it; he also loses the ability to read other people's minds.

3h

No touch Of allegory is present; the whales are very real. Moreover, the

language is colloquial, not poetic. Among other things suggesting UMD in

this chapter, Stubb, Stewart notes, is referred to as "the third mate,”

shereas in Melville's final form of the novel Stubb is the second mate.
II

Stewart, in conclusion, questions whether any scholar, without more
specific external evidence, can work out the exact procedure of Helville' s
exiting of logy-Die .16 Nevertheless, Stewart has provided evidence, though
somewhat hypothetical at times, from Mobx-mck itself which helps to sub-
stantiate the contention that the novel underwent considerable remodeling
after August 7, 1850. We. can only hint at the actual process of Melville's
revision. Possibly, as Stewart suggests, Melville made more than one false
start. After he had set out upon his new conception of Roby-Dick in August,
1850, it is possible that he ran into difficulty and revised in turn some
parts of the novel he had written after August. In fact, as late as J1me,
1851, Melville in his letters to Hawthorne hinted that he was still having
trouble completing the novel.

Stmrt' s evidence is valuable in another way, for much of the material
he cites as being 1m (that is, added to the novel during revision) lppears
to be Shakespearean in nature. The paragraph which Stewart calls the
"insight passage" seems to be especially motivated by Melville's consort with
Shakespeare. The passage contains a logical rationale, clothed in terms of
tragedy, for his decision to give his grim Nantucket captain a tragic dignity
and to employ a poetic, heightened style in his whaling novel. Both of these
decisions are Shakespearean in inspiration. I do not imply that Shakespeare
was the only influence on Melville's change in direction in August, 1850; but
I do believe that Shakespeare's influence was one of the most important, and
that in this particular passage Melville's decisions mpear to be the kind a

35

writer would make under the direct stimulus of Shakespeare's creative energ.l7

First, let us consider Melville's determination, as indicated in the
"ins ight pasage," to create Ahab as- a tragic hero. Noting that many
Nantucket whalers are named after Biblical characters and imbibed by their
'Quaker heritage with “the stately thee and thou," Melville observes that these
I'unoutgroun peculiarities“ blend with the courage and I'audacity" gained from
whaling experiences to produce “a thousand bold dashes of character.” Now
1mm these qualities, lelville reasons, meet in a man of superior force,
intellect, and soul, who by close contact with nature becomes untraditional,

. introspective, and independent, the resulting synthesis produces a hero of
tragic proportions. Helville, then, visualises Ahab, not as a bloody sea-
captain, but as "a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies ," an
indication that he is thinking in terms of the Shakespearean hero. Although
Melville nowhere in the passage mentions Shakespeare by name, he does say
that the whalers have “bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian
sea-king, or a. poetical Pagan Rom," a comparison which suggests Melville
had Hamlet and Brutus in mind.» he wrote. Furthermore, when he describes
Ahab as a tragic figure who would have “a half wilful over-ruling morbidness
at the bottom of his nature," he is describing Ahab as a hero with a
Shakespearean tragic flaw.

In addition to perceiving Ahab as a Shakespearean tragic hero, Melville
realises in the "insight passage" that since many men in the whaling industry
acquire the Quaker speech idioms, such as "the stately dramatic thee and thou,"
and live in close contact with unature's sweet or savage inpressions," he
could Justify the use of "a bold and nervous lofty language"—-the language of
Shakespeare's plays—in his style. Thus Melville records his perception of

the necessity of a poetic prose in Hog-Dick, the importance of an elevated
style comparable to that of tragech'.

36

Therefore, I feel Melville's "insight passage" is not only a memorandmn
for much of what the new Moby-Ilickcontained, but also a record of Melville's
two-fold communion with Shakespeare. One of the primary agents in the
release of Melville's creative powers at this time was ShakeSpeare's artistic
energy and tragic powers—forces which were instrumaital in leading Melville
to write the "insight passage."

III

Taking aw lead from Stewart's article, I shall examine the first few
chapters of MD, beginning with chapter 23, in order to illustrate the pro-
found impact of Shakespearean art and tragedy working in Melville as a result
of his perceptions in the "insight passage." Chapter 23, "The Lee Shore,"
presents Bxflkington for the last time. Here he takes on allegorical and
symbolical sigmificance as Melville's ideal man, something akin to “the
Handsome Sailor” who was to appear later in Melville's writing, especially

in Billy Budd. He no longer functions as a narrative character. The chapter,

 

lacking the homey, realistic, and humorous qualities of UMD, is writtm in
the atmosphere of serious tragechr. The language has become poetical, exalted,
heightened, pervaded with a rlw'tlmical undertone. Poetic devices appear, such
as the apostrophe, simile,18 pathetic fallacy.” The extended image of the
land, symbolizing safety, and the sea, representing the dangerous and infi-
nite search for truth, is carried throughout the chapter. The very language
of poetry appears: wondez'i‘ullest, 'gainst, digest, £13.51) lashed, howling ing,-
nite, ingloriously dashed, ocean-perishing, landlessness, forloflz, m.
Alliteration also appears abundantly: should I _s_ee gtanding, gamestuous 3am,
seemed goorehing, storm-tossed ghip, leeward land, port is pitiful, lashed
gea'_s_ lmdleegness, wildest finds, _s_lavi_s_h ghore. The repetitious quality

of the chapter may also be of Shakespearean derivation. Shakespearean
influence, both in art and in tragic atmosphere, thus appears in the first of

37

the MD chapters.

Chapters 2!; and 25 present the first cetology, which appears at this
time apparently to counteract Ishmael's remark in chapter 1 that Whaling was
“shabby business." Melville has employed this cetology section in order to
raise the level of whaling to a state of dignity, to sanething magiificent and
royal, believing such a setting necessary for the introduction of a great
tragic hero.

Chapters 26 and 27, both entitled ”Knights and Squires," also show the
influence of Shakespeare. The very title of these chapters indicates an
attempt to preserve the mood established in the previous m chapters, a mood
of digiity and magnificence. These chapters are actually a sort of dramatis
gnomes. Although some of the characters here presented have been already
introduced into the narrative, they are reintroduced at this point as heroic
personages in keeping with the new atmosphere of tragedy. Melville emphasizes
the cosmic nature of the crew for the first time; the three mates come from
three different parts of the country, and the three harpooners come from three
different races. By making his crew representative of the people of the world,
Melville has given himself more freedom in characterization and added univer-
sality to his novel.20

In chapter 28 Melville presents Ahab as he is suggested in the ”insight
passage.” No longer is his character suggestive of the cruel, brutal sea
captain foreshadowed by Peleg and Elijah in the Transition. The new concep-
tion of Ahab as a tragic figure can be seen in Ishmael's description of him:

Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the ship '3 ever-
pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate,
unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication
of that glance....And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before
them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing
dignity of some mighty woe.

The juxtaposition in Ahab of a willfulness and pride over against a morbidity

38

and regal, mighty woe is a composite picture of a Shakespearean tragic hero
whose intemal struggle leaves him proud, yet despairing. This is the Ahab
who dominates the revised Moby-Dick, and the paradox of these two traits
reappear again and again throughout the rest of the novel. The last para-
graph contains a sustained simile, suggestive of Shakespeare's imagery and
the Homeric sindle:
Nevertheless, are long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant
holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood.
For, as when the red-checked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to
the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-
cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green Spouts, to welcome
such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little reapond to
the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put
forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have
soon flowered out in a smile.
This is also suggestive, in its fanciful yet faintly incongruous comparison,
of the Elizabethan conceit.
In chapter 29 Melville employs the dramatic method almost completely.
The very title of the chapter is a stage direction: "Enter Ahab, to him—Stubb,"
and hereafter many of the chapters are headed by similar stage directions.
More than a third of the chapter consists of a long soliloquy by Stubb, the
first of many soliloquies to be employed subsequently in the novel. Further-
more, Stubb's soliloquy is presented in dramatic terms, in language reminis-
cent of Shakespeare: "A hot old man! I guess he's got what some folks ashore
call a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say-«worse than a
toothache....He's full of riddles." Stubb, after commenting on the
nw'steriousness of Ahab, concludes dramatically:
What the devil's the matter with me? I don't stand right on my legs.
Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out. By
the Lord, I must have been dreaming though—How? how? how?-—but the only
way's to stash it; so here goes to hammock again; and in the morning,
I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by daylight.
This drmnatic soliloquy has an archaic flavor both in the use of such words

and phrases as coming afoul, stash, plaguey Juggling, Tic-Dolly-row, and in

39

its syntax. It contains repetition, a favorite device used by Shakespeare
for emphasis, such as "How? how? hour?" Note also that the monologue suggests
the movements of Stubb: "so here goes to hammock again."

These first few chapters of MD seem to reveal that the impact of
Shakespeare is quite considerable. It is the motivating force behind
Melville' s attempt to create tragic grandeur in both general atmosphere and
characterization, especially in Ahab. The Shakespearean influence is also
apparent in Melville' s poetical and figurative style in the revised novel.

Iv .

This chapter has presented Stewart's data concerning the old and new
Mpg-Dick for two reasons: first to show that Mom-Dick itself supports the
hypothesis,previously based m limited external information, of a radical
reworldng of the novel, and _s_e_c_9_n_<l to illustrate that the new Mobz-Dick,
among other things, was reconstructed along Shakespearean dramatic lines.

If we accept Stewart's conjecture, the "insight passage" represents that mo—
ment whm Melville saw how his novel was ultimately to be presented. But more
significantly, as far as it concerns this study, the "insight passage" indicates
by its content that, above all, Shakespeare' s genius was stimulating Melville's
when he jotted it dam. Melville's Shakespearean inspired decision in the
memorandum to portray Ahab as "a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble
tragedies" and to articulate his tragedy in "bold and nervous lofty language"
became one of the main factors producing the Moby-Dick upon which his fame

largely rests today.

to

Notes for Chapter III

1. Leon Howard, Herman Melville (Berkeley, 1951), p. 131.

2. George R. Stewart,Tw The Two “Moby-Dicks," AL, XXV (1953-511), pp. 1117-1116.
In this chapter I have made extensive use of Stewart's illuminating article.
It presents valuable evidence from Mobz-Dick for the theory that there was
an original version of the novel quite different from the final form which
reached the presses. I have examined the data which Stewart believes was
written during the revision of Moby—Dick for the presence of Shakespearean
influence. In the first sectim chapter, I have paraphrased some of
the highlights of Stewart's investigation. I haved noted only exact quota-
tions from Stewart's article, but to avoid confusion, whenever I have made
a personal comment in "Section I," I have placed it in the notes. It may be
well to mtion at this time that the influences leading to Melville's re-
vision of his whaling novel were not solely Shakespearean. Howard, pp. 1119-
179, in his discussion of the genesis and growth of MOE-Dick, gives an
adequate summary of the various sources and influences in the formation of
Moby-Dick. He also discusses (pp. 165-173) the differences between the early
and the revised Mob ~Dick.

3. Stewart, p. 132.

1;. Stewart, p. 1123, admits concerning these details that "Taken individually,
these minor details may be considered doubtful, or may be written off as
mere author's lapses. Taken in the aggregate, they are not easily dismissed."

5. Stewart, p. 1123.

6. Howard P. Vincent, in _'1'_h_e Trying—Out of Moby-Dick (Boston, 19119), p. 56,
notes that Ishmael functions *drmatically as a chorus character in Mobz—Dick.
Narrator, prologue, and epilogue, Ishmael's commentary elucidates and his
person enfolds the entire novel. "No less than Horati o in Hamlet " says
Vincent, " Ishmael is the author's surrogate among the Pquo 03 crew.“

7e Stewart's pe 1423e

8. Stewart, pe 11290

9. Stewart, p. 1.131, concludes: "It looks then on the whole very much as if
in LID Stubb and Flask were conceived as different characters from the
characters which they became in MD. Stubb for instance may have been the
third mate (as he is said to be in Chapter ILVIII), and may have been more
developed in that story than he is in the present one. Q1 revision the two
may have had their names embanged for some reason and have had their
characters somewhat mixed up. The bibulous characteristic of Flask would
have been out of place in MD, and so it was dropped completely."

10. Stewart, p. 1421-“

11. Though difficult to prove, I should suggest that Melville's use of a
poetical style came as a response to the creative energy of Shakespeare.

The "insight passage" in hog-Dick, which Stewart discusses (pp. 1:35-1:37),
lends evidence to this suggestion. It will be chscussed more fully later
in the chmr.

12. The attempt to elevate the novel to tragic proportions, I believe, is
a direct Shakespearean influence.

13. Stewart, p. 11311. The passage from Moby-Dick is in chapter 16.

1h. At the end of chapter 1 a reference is made to Moby-Dick which suggests
his symbolic whiteness: "...mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom,
like a snow hill in the air." If Melville alluded to the allegorical
function of the white whale in the first chapter, why did he refer to Moby
only as "the monstrousest parmacetty“ in chapter 16? A possible answer is
that this reference to the white whale in chapter 1 was added during
revision. Stewart, pp. 1133, 111.111, suggests this possibility, pointing out

Notes for Chapter III

 

also that the reference has no organic connection with the rest of the chapter.

15. If I, too, may be permitted a flight of fancy, I suggest that Melville
may have written this passage soon after writing in August, 1850, his review
of Hawthome's Masses.

16. The paraphrase of Stewart's article ends here.

17. Besides the two decisions in the ainsiwt passage," which stem from
Melville's reSponse to Shakespeare, the frequency in which terms of tragedy
appear in the passage also indicates the ShakeSpearean influence. Such words
and phrases as stately dramatic, mighty pageant creature, noble tragedies,
dramatically regarded, W oetical, and logy Ianfiage 'suggestTm
profoundly Melville was thinking in terms of drama and tragedy when he wrote
this passage. .

18. The last paragraph in chapter 23 contains two striking similes: "in-
definite as God“ and "worm-like" (which is continued in "craven crawl to
land!" 0 .

19. Allardyce Nicoll, in The Theory of Drama (New York, n.d.), pp. 112-113,
defines pathetic fallacy as? kind of Species of natural symbolism. "This
natural symbolism," Nicoll notes, "has been used by other dramatic poets...
but not to the extent in which it appears in ShakeSpeare's dramas." "I is
evident in the darkness and the gloom of the castle in which Duncan is
murdered and in the storm scenes of Lear, where the lashing hail and the
driving wind seem to sympathize with the aged king, the tempest outside
symbolizing in a way the tempest of madness in his own brain." Melville,
Who read Lear carefully, may have received his idea of employing it in this
chapter, in His symbols of land and sea, and in "The Candles? where the
storm symbolizes the madness of Ahab, from Shakespeare.

20. Universality is a trait found readily in ShakeSpeare. It is the
ability to portray exceptional human beings beset with problems and conflicts
of a cosmic or universal nature, those difficulties which engulf all with
whom the hero comes into contact and which produce an impression that the
hero who has faced them has lived life to the fullest. See chapter 5, section
2, for a more detailed discussion on universality.

 

CHAPTER IV
"THE ART ITSELF IS NATURE"

The effect on him [Melville] of such books as Shakespeare and the

Bible was remarkable for the reason that he not only echoed them

verbally but re-created what he found there in terms of his own time

and language, of his own vision. Their words sank to the deepest level

of his consciousness, there to be constantly transforming and trans-

formed by his thought and imagination.1

The above statement by Wright suggests the theme of this chapter. In the

previous chapter, I attempted to show that a considerable part of the new
material added to Mobz—Dick during its revision was the result of the double
action of ShakeSpeare upon Melville. This action was two-fold in that his
reading of Shakespeare influenced both Melville's poetic style, and his attempt
to create a tragic atmosphere and hero. The analysis of the first few

chapters of MD ,2

at the end of chapter 3, illustrated that these two
Shakespearean influences were playing a significant part in the formation of
the new Mobz-Dick. The present chapter is concerned with a closer examination
of the impact of Shakespeare's creative energy upon Melville's style and
language. In examining Moby—Dick for evidences of the influence of
Shakespeare's art, we must constantly keep in mind that Melville was no mere
copyist of Shakespeare's style and language. Melville adapted, assimilated,
and integrated Shakespeare's language, phraseology, and poetic style into his
own idiom; he shaped this artistic influence to meet his own needs and
preoccupations, and stamped his own genius upon it so that much of it became
essentially his own.
I
The starting point in this discussion of the influence of Shakespeare's

art upon Melville is with a consideration of the many verbal echoes of the

great dramatist to be found in MOE—D16 .3 The actual identifiable references
in Mobz-Dick to Shakespeare and his plays are relatively few and brief, a fact

(12)

“‘II

1:3

which helps to back up my contention that Melville did not employ these echoes
for their own sake but adapted them in terms of his own vision. In fact, the
only literal quotation is "lit tu Brute!" in chapter 65. It is, however, worth
noting that Melville has used this famous expression of Julius Caesar
ironically, cleverly adapting it to the context of a satirical and ironical
passage. About midway in the narrative he mentions Mark Antony and his
adventures on the Nile, and in chapter 81; Melville compares the flight of the 3
whales to the flight of "Cleopatra's barges from Actium." Besides these 1
references to Antomr and CleOpatraJ he alludes to two other plays. He speaks
of “Richard III. mam" in chapter 55; and in "The Deck“ Ahab refers to i
213% when he asks the carpenter, "Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working
about a coffin?...the grave—digger in the play sings, spade in hand." In
chapter 79 Melville refers directly to Shakespeare: ”Few are the foreheads
which like Shakespeare's...rise so high, and descend so low, that the eyes
themselves sem clear, eternal, tideless mountain lakes...."’4
The list of paraphrases and modifications of Shakespearean quotations
is much larger. I shall not attempt to list all the allusions to Shakespeare
in Meg-Dick, for a mere listing would be neither particularly meaningful nor
interesting. A few examples will serve to illustrate Melville's adaptation of
Shakespearean quotations for his own purposes.
The oath-taking episode in chapter 36 is suggestive of a similar event in
W. Matthiessen gives an excellent analysis of the similarity of these
scenes when he says:
A more effective since less labored derivation adds intensity to the
moment when Ahab pledges the crew to his purpose in the harpoon-cups.
For he also makes the three mates cross their lances before him, and
seizes them at their axis, "meanwhile glancing intently from Starbuck
to Stubb, from Stubb to Flask." The cellarage scene where‘Hamlet'

compelled Horatio and Marce us to swear on his sword was Operating on
the same construction here.

In chapter 70, "The Sphynx," Melville makes use of a famous scene from
Hamlet, again accommodating it to his own needs. Ahab, “with eyes atten-
tively fixed,u Speaksto the "black and hooded head" of the Whale, which
"hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm...seemed the SphlmX's in
the desert":
Speak, thou vast and venerable head...which, though ungarnished with a
beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak,'mighty head,
and tell us the segret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast
dived the deep83te
Ahab, after probing into the vast secrets and mysteries of the whale, con-
eludes by exclaiming: no head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and

make an infidel of Abrahmn, and not one syllable is thine!” This bring to

hip“

mind Hamlet's famous soliloquy to the skulls in the churchyard. But although
Melville has derived the general. framework for his short chapter on the whale's
head from Shakespeare, he has, in its details, stamped his own individuality
upon it. The subject matter of the soliloquy is Melville's, not Shakespeare's.
The purpose of the scene, which is to emphasize once again the vast mystery
and ambiguity of whales in general and of the white whale in particular, is

in tune with the rest of the novel.

In addition to similarities between scenes, many parallels to Shakespeare
in sentences and phrases can be found in Moby-Dick. In chapter 131:, when Ahab
learns of the Parsee's death, he cries out in deepair, "My line! my line?
Gme?--gone? “hat means that little womb-What death-Imell rings in it,
that old Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry." These lines clearly echo
Macbeth, act II, scene i:

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

In its general tone, Ahab's cry also suggests Macbeth's lines of deepair

when he receives news of his wife's death:7

145

To—morrow, and to-morrow, and to—morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow....8

Pip's lamented repetition of the word "coward" and especially the phrase
“shame upon all cowards" in chapters 110 and 129 was possibly suggested by
Falstaff's "a plague of all cowards," repeated twice in 1 Henry IV) act II,

 

scene iv.9 In chapter 32, "Cetology,n "mere sounds, full of Loviathanism,

a ._--._.l_.. - «4-,.n

but siglifying nothing" is a close paraphrase of Macbeth, act V, scene v:
'...full of sound and mry, / Signifying nothing."10 Ahab's speech in ”The
Synphony," which partially reveals his humanity, is somewhat equivalent to

r._(Ma_ ..__ .

’ ,

Macbeth's final reflections about the futility of his quest for power and to
Hamlet's cry, ”Thou woulast think / How 5.11 all's here about my heart."11
Ishmael's plea—"let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and
sperm of kindness"--is a somewhat labored derivation of Macbeth, act I,
scene v: "It is too full 0' the milk of human kindness."12

These examples illustrate how Melville adapted phrases, sentences, and
scenes from Shakespeare's plays. Ooviously the degree of mastery with which
Melville assimilated Shakespearean allusions into the context of his thought
varies. But, on the whole, Melville succeeded well in transplanting
Shakespearean quotations into the fabric of Moby-Dick—so well that many of
the parallels come to light only upon a close scrutiny of the text.

II

Melville's "insight passage," as I suggested in chapter 3, reveals the
author at that point when he decided to delineate Ahab as a "mighty pageant
creature, formed for noble tragedies." Parallel with this decision is
Melville's realization that a language which was bold, nervous, and lofty

would be most suitable for a character with "a half wilful over-ruling

h6

morbidness." Chapter 23, the first of the MD chapters, shows Melville dress-
ing his prose in the language and device of poetry, in an elevated, metaphoric
language. On the surface it is prose, but-beneath--in its Spirited and
energetic forcefulness, in its musical rhythm, in its lofty and exalted
tone—it is poetry. The spirit, imagery, pulsation, and sound of the chapter
lift it beyond the confines of clear, cold prose into the realm of heroic and
tragic grandeur; and the language of tragedy, as Shakespeare has so forcibly
shown, is the language of emotion and intense feeling—the language of poetry.

Melville's impression of ShakeSpeare's artistic powers, I believe, was
directly influential in his decision to re-create Mogy-Dick in a bold, nervous,
heightened style. This decision to employ a poetical language led to a matur-
ation of his artistry. F. O. Matthiessen, to whose study of ShakeSpeare's
influence on Melville's art I am greatly indebted, believes Melville found. a
clue to the expression of the hidden meaning of life through the uuneasimpled
vitality of Shakespeare's language."13 Matthiessen probably would agree with
Wright's premise that when Melville turned to Shakespeare, he "re—created what
he found there in terms of his own time and language;" for Matthiessar
realizes that the possession of Shakespeare could have been disastrous for
Melville. "A man of less vigor,” Matthiessen asserts, would have reduced him-
self I'to the rank of dozens of stagey nineteenth-century imitators of the
dramatist's stylistic mannerisms."1h The importance of this point cannot be
overemphasized. Had Melville merely copied Shakespeare, perhaps there would
have been no reali/zation of his own genius in Moby—Dick. The realization
could very well have come later, but it would have been seriously delayed
by imitativeness at this point in his career.

A further examination of Mobz-Dick for evidence of the "Imexampled
vitality of Shakespeare's language" working upon Melville is necessary to

substantiate the belief that it, because Melville was no mere imitator,

’4?

resulted in the culmination of his artistic powers. I have already presented

as evidence the verbal echoes of Shakespeare, which Melville shaped for use

in Mom-Dick with varying success, and the poetical quality of chapter 23.
Melville's choice of words provides additional evidence of the dramatist's

influence. Shakespearean words, such as e o, hark, Wight, anon, halloa,

 

fgr the pit, out @on it, ere, underliwn_g_, faith six) for the nonce, fain,
naught, methinlcs, are used quite frequently in the novel. Although they

cannot be proved as directly Shakespearean in origin, sepecially when cm-

.»-.-- .z .

sidered individually, it cannot be dmied that they give the narrative and

A; v...

dialogue an Elizabethan flavoring. }

[I -. ..

Another aspect of Melville's style, the use of words, shows possible
Shakespearean: influence. For instance, Melville may have gained his practice
of having characters repeat words for dramatic effect from his reading of
the English playwright. Ahab, in his first soliloquy, says, “Come, Ahab's
coupliments to ye; come and see if ya can swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else
ye swerve yourself." Later he says, "so, so, so, than—softly, softly!" Or
take Stubb's words: "Well, Stubb, 1132 Stubb—that's my title—well, Stubb,
what of it, Stubb?"I The "nervousness"—that "short, rent“ quality as Olson
' calls it--of Ahab's language is in a large measure due to this use of repeti-
tion. Melville's use of puns may have its origin in Shakespeare's word-play.
The old Manx sailor in chapter to says, "Well, well; belike the whole world's
a ball, as you scholars have it; and so 'tis right to make one ball-room of
it. Dance on, lads, you're young; I was once." In chapter 125 Ahab makes a
sarcastic pun out of theMamonan's home: "In the Isle of Man, hey? Well,
the other way, it's good. Here's a man from Man; a man born in once inde-

pendent Man, md now unmaxmed of Man." In "Sunrises" Ahab plays'upon the
word "cash”: "They may scom cash now; but let some months go by, and no

perspective promise of it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at

Lt8

once nmtinying in them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab." Unfortu-
nately, Melville's punning led to an ignominious word-play at the end of
”'me (lassock.II

The elevated passages, especially the soliloquies,‘ reveal Melville at
his poetical best. Here Shakespeare exerted a strong influence. In fact,
many of these passages are easily arranged into blank verse which is both
Shakespearean in tone, technique, and language and at times almost perfect
in its rhythm. For example, much of Ahab's soliloquy in "Sunset" can be

arranged into dramatic blank verse:

I leave a white and turbid wake;
Pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail.
The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm
W track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder
By the ever-brimning goblet's rim, the warm
Waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue.
The diver sun—slow dived from noon,--goes down;
My soul mounts up!

Dry heat upon m brow? Oh! time was, when

As the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed.

No more. This lovely light, it lights not me;

All loveliness is anguish to me, since I

Can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception,

I lack the low, enjoying power; damned,

Most subtly and most maligiantly! damed

In the midst of Paradise! Good night-good night!
Some of the sequences are irregular, but the iambic beat predominates
throughout the pentameter lines; and it must be remembered that the metrical
variations, such as initial trochee, inverted word order, spendee, pyrrhic,
anapaestic, and varied caesura, present in the above examples, were used by
Shakespeare, too, in order to relieve the monotony often caused by perfect
regularity. In addition to illustrating the metrical qualities of Melville's
"poetical prose ," the above examples reveal other characteristics of poetry.
Repetition and alliteration add to the musical effect of the passage. Vivid
imagery adds to the beauty of the prose; metaphors, sinnles, andpathetic

fallacy raise up vivid pictures within the reader's mind. Sound, rhythm,

1:9

figure, and language combine to create a poetical, serene description of the
sunset: "Yonder by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like
wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue." Actually the first half of the
soliloquy is a sustained image of the sunset and its effect upon Ahab, the
author ringing every possible change out of the comparison, in a maimer
reminiscent of Shakespeare.

Closely related to the poetical quality of Ahab's soliloquy in "Sunset"
are the characteristics of Ahab's speech, another area where Shakespeare has
touched Melville's art. In fact, Melville's poetical style forms an integral
part of Ahab's speech, distinguished as it is by an extreme energyr and
loftiness. In Ahab's soliloquies, which usually reveal him under emotional
tension, alternating between despair mid rage, his speech comes by bursts as
if violently wrested from his soul. The words do not come smoothly or easily;
Ahab has to fight for them. Part of this quality, as indicated before, comes
from the repetition of key words or phrases. Melville may have received the
idea of representing Ahab's speech as hesitant and nervous from Shakespeare.
Olson suggests this when he says:

of the soliloquies Ahab's show the presence of Elizabethan speech most....
Melville characterized Ahab's language as I'nervous, o y. e
soliloquies it is jagged like that of a Shakespeare hero whose Speech like
his heart often cracks in the agony of fourth and fifth act.15

The soliloquy in "Sunset" illustrates Ahab's jagged, hesitant speech.
The chapter shows Ahab in a mood of depression. The weight of carrying the
"Iron Crown of Lombardy“ is heavy upon him:
Yet is it bright with many a gem; I, the wearer, see not its far flashings;
but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron—-
that I know—mot gold. 'Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls
me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull,
mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight.
This passage illustrates Ahab's hesitant speech, even the use of "spitting"

initial consonants in words like split, galls, steel, skull, brain-battering

50

adding to the effect.

Although the influence of Shakespeare is pervasive in "Sunset," Melville
has stampted his own individuality upon it. In the second.half of the
soliloquy Ahab begins with an Elizabethan geometrical image: "I thought to
find.one stubborn...but my one cogged circle fits into all their various
wheels, and they revolve.“ But Melville adds another’image'which is modern
and colloquial: "Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all
stand.before me; and I their match." A few lines later, Ahab speaks informally
and.colloquially again: "I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricketeplayers, ye
pugilists, ye deaf Burkes, and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as school-
boys do to bullies,-—Take some one of your own size..." Here we have a
peculiar change of pace. Occasionally, intersperseduwithin the elevated,
dignified, poetic passages, are colloquial, less poetic conceits and compar-
isons. At the end of the monologue, the cadences increase and.tension mounts
once again. The chapter ends in.s tone that is Shakespearean, but its imagery
expressing fatality is Melville's own:

The path to my'fixed.purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is
grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of
mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle,
naught's an angle to the iron way!

any'aspects, then, of Melville's style show'the influence of ShakeSpeare.
Melville's language often has an archaic, Elizabethan flavor; stylistically,
Melville has employed repetitions, puns, blank verse characteristics, vivid
and.elaborate imagery'and.figurative Speech, and.bold, jagged, elevated
language, particularly in dialogue, soliloquies, and philoSOphical passages.
All these qualities of the new Mdhz—Dick owe much to the response Melville
made to the abundance of ShakeSpeare's creative linguistic energy.

III

However, not all the responses to ShakeSpeare's art were positive. The

51

Shakespearean influence at times reacted negatively upon melville's style.
Occasionally, Melville's employment of poetical devices, particularly
alliteration and assonance, results in a.highly'arttfiicial style which shows
the author at his worst. These instances suggest what could.have happened
had Melville simply imitated his original, without absorbing it into his
individuality. In "The Spirit-Spout" Melville overauses the initial “3"
consonant sound, mingling with it a repetition of the vowels "e," "i," "o":

It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and

moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrdlls of silver;

and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery

silence, not a solitude: on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen

far in.advance of the white bubbles at the bow;
The passage begins well enough, but soon breaks down into a sequence of
fourteen alliterations. The author, in this instance, has not been discrimi-
nating in selecting echoes from ShakeSpeare's plays. The mere novelty of
imitating the atmosphere of the last act of The Mggchant_pf‘venige_where the
phrase "In such a.night" is repeated eight times and the word."moon" is
referred to several times appears to be the only reason for borrowing this
scene. Again, in "The Grand.Armada"'Melville overbuses alliteration: "...and
while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep
inland....“ The strong influence Shakespeare exerts upon Ahab's Speech is not
altogether beneficial either. ‘Matthiessen points out the danger of such almost
unconsciously compelled.verse:

As it wavers and breaks down again into ejaculatory press, it seems never

to have belonged to the speaker, to have been at best a ventriloquist‘s

trick. The weakness is similar in those speeches of Ahabls that show'obvi-

ous allusion to a series of Shakespearean characterS. The sum of the parts

does not make a greater whole; each one distracts attention to itself and

interferes with the singleness of Ahab's development.16

IV

For the most part, however, Shakespeare's artistic influence was positive.

Matthiessen, summarizing the impact of ShakeSpeare's language and style upon

52

Melville, tells about an important lesson Melville learned fran the dramatist:

In Melville's case the accident of reading Shake3peare had been a
catalytic agent, indispensable in releasing his work from limited report-
ing to the expression: of profound natural forces. Lear's Fool had taught
him what Starbuck was to remark about poor Pip, that even the exalted
words of a lunatic could penetrate to the heavenly wateries. But Melville
came into full possession of his own idiom, not when he was half following
Shakespeare, but when he had grasped the truth of the passage in The Winter's
Tale that "The art itself is nature."17

Melville saw the significance of Shakespeare's profound statement concerning
the relation of art to nature; when he read this passage, he double-scored and
added the remark, "A world here," to its opening We lines:

Yet nature is made better by no mean

But nature makes that mean: so, over that art,
lhich you say adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock,

And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race: this is an art

lhich does mend nature, change it rather, but

The art itself is nature.

latthiessen in American Renaissance develops at lengthEnerson‘s organic
principle of art,18 a principle which has as its premise that art must be
based organically on nature. The passage from The Winter's Tale which Melville
marked is an expression of that principle. Matthiessm quotes Coleridge's
key-passage on the organic principle, which arose significantly from his

analysis of Shakespeare :

No work of two genius dares want its appropriate form, neither indeed
is there any danger of this. As it must not, so genius can not, be law-
less; for it is even this that constitutes it gmius-the power of acting
creatively under laws of its own origination...The form is mechanic, when
a: any given material we impress a pre-determined form, not necessarily
arising out of the properties of the material;-as when to a mass of wet
clay we give whatever shape we wish it to retain when hardened. The
organic form, on the other hand, is innate; it shapes, as it develops,
itself from within, and the fulness of its deveIOpment is one and the
same with the perfection of its outward form. Such as the life is, such
is the fem. Nature, the prime genial artist, inexhaustible in diverse
powers, is equally inexhaustible in foms....19

“Ask the fact for the form,“ Emerson said, for "it is not metres, but a
metre-making argument that makes a poem." Emerson believed the intrinsic

53

thought which gives rise to a poem must be "so passionate and alive that
like the Spirit of a plant or an animal it has an architecture of its mm,

and adorns nature with a new thing."20

Melville, in grasping from
Shakespeare that "the art itself is nature," realized an organic principle
akin to Emerson's and Coleridge's.

Melville learned from Shakespeare's discussion of art that to borrow
nodes from Shakespeare in their entirety would be a grave error, for the
appropriate form must come organically from the matter itself. In "The
Specksynder,“ for example, Melville concludes his description of Ahab in
“a bold and nervous lofty language" which though suggestive of Shakespeare
is in Melville's om medium:

But Ahab, nw Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket

grimess and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and Kings,
I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old whale-hunter
like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings and housings
are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be
plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in
the unbodied air!
Iatthiessen, discussing this passage, notes how the final phrase is espe-
cially "Shakespearean in its imaginative richness.” However, its two key
words occur only once each in the dramas, “featured" in 5391 Ado About
Nothing (“How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured"), and "unbodied"
in 12011118 and. Cressida ("And that unbodied figure of the thought / That
gave't surmised shape“ ). From neither of these passages from ShakeSpeare
did Melville receive the idea for his new combination. Rather Melville has
admted these verbs of action so completely to his own usage that they have
become his as well as Shakespeare's.21
V

Nevertheless, though Melville was not echoing ShakeSpeare when in "full

possession of his own idiom," it must be remembered that he retained the

characteristics of a poetic prose, a style essential to the imaginative

Sh

freedom and the intellectual speculation which went into the new Mom-Dick,
through the agency of the great dramatist, that is, through his perception
of the significance of Shakespeare's statement that "art itself is nature."
Responding to the vitality of the English playwright's verse, Melville chose
to articulate Roby-Dick, in its tragic, philosophic, and symbolic depths,
with an organic style that Olson characterizes as "a deeply imagined
systolic and diastolic pulsation, as though of the universe itself."22 This
pulsation, a regular variation of tempo and cadence, can be observed in the
difference between Ishmael's narrative and descriptive prose and Ahab's
speech. Ishmael, the passive, choric narrator, relates his story easily and
freely; but Ahab, the active and energetic force of the novel, speaks angrily
and nervously.23 Thus Melville has applied the organic principle, the
pulsating withdrawal and return of life itself—in its death and. birth,
disintegration and integration, flux and order—to Mobflck. This variation
of rhythm and cadence cm be noticed within Ahab and Ishmael as well as
hem them. For the most part Ishmael quietly and calmly unfolds his
story, but often he moves from the strait narration of facts to speculate
upon them. During these philosophical passages, language and style become
lofty, emotional, and figurative. A similar rise and fall of tempo occurs
in Ahab‘s cyclic variation between quiet despair and stony rage.

The revised novel provides many examples of Melville's vivid and
masterly variety and flow of language, of its pulsating rhythms and lyrical
beauty. A few examples will suffice to show Melville's mastery of the
art "that nature makes." In “The Cabin-Table" Melville describes Ahab's
isolation in vivid imagery, making an unique and detailed comparison between

the hibernation of the grizzly bear and Ahab's latent soul:

he lived in the world, as the last of the’srisly Bears lived in settled
Missom'i. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan
of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the

55

winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age,

Ahab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the

sullen paws of its gloom!
Frequently Melville draws upon nature for such images as the one in this
passage. Sometimes Melville succeeds in packing into one sentence rhythms
of nature which set the mood for a whole scene, as in “The Sphynx": "An
intense cOpper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfold-
ing its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea." In chapter 81 Melville
uses succinct figurative language and alliteration to advantage in describing
a group of whales traveling abreast: "They left a great, wide wake, as though
continually unrolling a great wide parchment upon the sea." Ingenious imagery
is employed in "The Grand Armada" to describe Ahab's brow: “...Ahab's brow
was left galmt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some stomv tide
has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the firm thing from its
place." Here Melville has successfully drawn upon natural forces to convey
Ahab's internal conflict; Ahab's suffering has gnawed upon his indomitable
will, but has not dragged it from its fixed purpose.

In the dramatic chapter, "The Candles," Ahab's bold defiance of God and
the elements, though suggestive of ShakeSpeare, shows Melville's mastery over
his medium. Melville may have received the germ for the scene from Cassius's
defiance of lightning in Julius Caesar, but beyond this he has created a
tense, dramatic episode pervaded by a Melvillian sense of speech rhythm,
not dependent upon someone else's poetry. "The verbal resources demonstrate,“
Matthiessen asserts,

that Melville [‘ in "The Candles"_7 has now mastered ShakeSpeare's

mature secret of how to make language itself dramatic. He has learned

to depend more and more upon verbs of action, which lend their dynamic
pressure to both movement and meaning. A highly effective tension is
set up by the contrast between "thou launchest navies of full—freighted
worlds“ and “there's that in here that still remains indifferent." The

compulsion to strike the breast exerted by that last claugfi suggests
how thoroughly the drama has come to inhere in the words.

56

VI

This chapter has attempted to illustrate how Melville used the
abundance of Shakespeare's art to advantage. His decision to use a highly
elevated and dramatic poetic diction resulted in a style which is one of the
outstanding features of Moby—Dick. Melville wisely chose not merely to
imitate the English dramatist. Although it must be admitted that at times
he succumbed to the temptation of using Shakespearean material which failed
to harmonize with the scheme of his novel, for the most part he employed
ShakeSpearean allusions and artistic devices with a freshness and originality
which made them uniquely his own. Shakespeare's influence on Melville's art
was most positive, however, when Melville received direction from the
creative emery of the dramatist's art and from the lesson ShakeSpeare
taught him that I'the art itself is nature." When Melville had graSped these
two gifts, he could write of Pip's accident with a magnificent expression
' of the sacredness of madness:
The sea had Jerringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite
of his soul. Not drowned entirely though. Rather carried down alive to
wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped printal world glided
to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-meman, Wisdom, revealed
his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eter-
nities, Pip saw the mlltitudinous, God-onuipresent, coral insects, that
out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's
foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his ship-
mates called him mad. So man's insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering
from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which,

to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then lmcomprondsed,
indifferent as his God.

57

Notes for Chapter IV

1. Nathalie Wright, MelvilleLs: Use of the Bible (Durham, 191.0), p. 19.

2. MD includes chaptErs 23 to "Epilogue," which contain mostly revised and
new material.

3. Part of the list of actual references to Shakespeare's plays is taken
from Raymond G. Hughes, "Melville and Shakespeare," SAB, VII (1932), 105-
106. Hughes errs in stating that the quotation "Et til—Brute!" appears in
chapter 85. It is in chapter 65.

h. Helville also makes direct references to Shakespeare in the "Extracts"
which preface the novel. Melville lists a quotation from "King Henry" :
"The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward bruise." This
is from 1 Henry IV, act I, scene iii, lines 57-58. Immediately following
this quotation isfithe following from Hamlet, act III, scene ii, line 399:
"Very like a whale." In addition to these direct quotations, Melville, in
a note to the word "gallied" in chapter 87, says in part: "To gailg, or
gallow, is to frighten excessively—to confound with fright. t s an old
Saxon word. It occurs once in Shakespeare :-'The wrathful skies / Gallow
the very wanderers of the dark / And make them keep their caves.m TE 8
quotation is from King Lear, act III, scene ii, lines 143-145.

5. F. O. Matthiessen, American Renaissance (London, 191:1), . 1432.

6. This recalls Melville‘s letter tomcfinck, March 3, 18 9: "I love all
men who dive."

7. Hughes, p. 1080

8. Both Ahab's speech and Macbeth's famous words of deepair contain rep-
etition which heightens the effect in both instances.

9. Mo —Dick or The Whale, eds. Luther 8. Mansfield and Howard P. Vincent
(New York, I952}, p. BEL—hereafter cited as Moby-Dic .

10. MOElz-‘Dick, p. 6760

33.1.821oward P. Vincent, The mgr—Out of Moby-Dick (Boston, 1919), pp.

38 -3 . _ _

12. Pierre and The Confidalce M33 also contain numerous direct references
and allusions to ShakeSpeare and his plays. See the explanatory notes in
Pierre orLThg Ambiguities, ed. Henry A. Murray (New York, 19149), and in
in; Confidence Man: His Masquerade, ed. Elizabeth 5. Foster (New York, 195M.

13. Matthiessen, pOj—BZBQ ‘

1h. Matthiessen, p. hZh.

15. Charles Olson, Call Me Ishnagl (New York, 19M), p. 38.

16. Matthiessen, p. E6.

17. Matthiessm’ p. 1128.

18. Matthiessen, pp. 133-110.

19. Matthiessen, pp. 133-131;.

20. Matthiessen, p. 13h.

21. Matthiessen, pp. h28-h29.

22. Olson, "Lear and Moby-Dick," Twice a Yeag, I (1938), 185.

23. Olson, Call Me Ishmael p. 68. *

2h. Matthiessen, pp. 30- 31.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER V

"A MIGHTY PAGEAI‘IT CREATURE, FORLED FOB. NOBLE TRAGEDIES"

And so, in the days of King Lear, it Was chiefly the power of "monstrous"
and apparently cureless evil in the "great world" that filled ShakeSp'eare‘ 3
soul with horror, and perhaps forced him sometimes to yield to the in-
firmity of misanthropy and despair, to cry "No, no, no life," and to
take refuge in the thought that this fitful fever‘is a dream that must
soon fade into a dreanless sleep; until to free himself from the perilous
stuff that weighed upon his heart, he surmoned to his aid his "so potent
art," and wrought this stuff into the stormy music of his greatest poem,
which seems to cry, "You heavens, give me that patience, patience I
need," and, like the Tempest, seems to preach to us from end to end,
"Thou must be patient," "Bear free and patient thoughts.“-

Bradley's statement not only suggests the state of ShakeSpeare's mind
during the time he was writing King Lear, but also suggests, eSpecially in
the first part, Melville's reaction to the tragic implications of life when
composing Moby-Dick. Yet this quotation also reveals the fundamental
cleavage between the two writers. Both Shakespeare and Melville perceived
the double nature of life, the ambiguous, two-faced image of good and evil.
Both yielded to the horror and deepair of life. But Shakespeare managed to
present his view of tragedy with an artistic detachment which kept his art
under control and which achieved an equilibrium betvmen the contending forces
of good and evil—s. harmony which he expressed through Edgar in King Lear:

Men must endure

Their going hence even as their coming hither;

Ripeness is all.
ShakeSpeare recognized and accepted this tragic vision of life. Melville,
too, recognized it, but could not "accept its limitations. Whereas Shakespeare
viewed the good and evil in life both with an.equa1 eye; Melville only vainly
professed that he did. It was the illusive, inseparable quality of good and
evil—the ambiguity of life-that graSped Melville's attention so intensely
that the piercingof the "dark" mystery of this mask became the theme of

Moby—Diclc. In fact, his attempt became so intensely personal, that Melville
(58)

S9

in his next novel, Pierre, lost even the partial balance he had achieved in
Moby—Dick. He injected himself so personally into £9.32 that his art dis-
integrated. Realizing that his quest to resolve the ambiguities of existence
had led only to more mysteries, Melville found himself mentally exhausted at
the finish of _l:i__e__rr_e_. He was to come to a state of acceptance later in

Billy Budd, when he both accepted and comprehended the meaning of "Ripeness is
all.“

The first two chapters of this study traced the growing awareness of
Shakespeare's greatness in Melville's mind, and postulated that, through the
agency of Shakespeare, Melville found crystallized within himself those
occult, hidden properties which led to a new and enriched Meg-Dick. Having
presented in chapter 1 the external evidence for a revision of Moby-Dick
shortly after Melville read ShakeSpeare, I considered in chapter 3 intemal
evidence for this revision, pointing out that much of the new material in
Mobz-Dick is quite possibly of Shakespearean origin. This is especially true
of the "insight passage" which, appearing to present Melville's decision to
rewrite logy-Dick in dramatic terms by using a poetic language and by creating
Ahab as a tragic hero, significantly reveals how deeply Shakespeare was
imbedded upon Melville's mind at this time. Chapter ’4 examined closely the
role Shakespeare played. in Melville's art during the revision-how Melville
learned from the playwright that art must be based organically upon nature.

In this concluding chapter, I shall present evidence from Moby-Diek of
Melville's carrying out his plan, implied in the "insight passage," of
raising the level of the novel to tragic proportions. In that passage,
Melville presents a memorandum for the "new" tragic Ahab. The description
of Ahab in the passage is suggestive of the Shakespearean hero in many ways.

Even the words “dramatically regarded" reveal the author thinking in terms
of tragedy. If in revising his novel Melville thought of Ahab as a tragic

60

hero, particularly Shakespearean, it follows that we should find in
Hoby-Dick mamr of Shakespeare's tragic ideas and techniques. This chapter
will consider, thm, the influence of ShakeSpeare, the writer of tragedies,
upon Herman Melville, in both the substance and the structure of his tragech'.
The first tapic of discussion will be the influence of Shakespeare upon the
structure of Kohl-Dick. The second tOpic will consider the subject of the
substance of tragedy—the relationship between Shakespeare's and Melville's
tragic characteristics. The third subject will deal Specifically with the
tragedy of Ahab. The final. section will contrast the two men's tragic views
of life.

But before examining Roby-Dick as a tragedy, I wish to advance what I
feel to be the proper approach to this study. First of all, critics are by
no means in agreement as to what constitutes a true tragedy, Shakespearean
or otherwise. We have, as a result, many contradictory theories of the
essence of tragew. Second, the meaning and tragic implications of Mom-Dick
are not easily established, for here critics differ also. Mumford, Arvin,
Sedgwick, Chase, Howard, Stone, and Weaver, for example, disagree on many
points in their interpretations of Hopi-Dick. For that matter, Matthiessen
and Olson fail to see eye to eye on the key question of whether Moby—Dick is
a Shakespearean tragedy. And here the problem of properly defining tragedy
merges with the problem of properly interpreting Melville's novel, for both
critics, in judging Mom-Dick as a Shakespearean tragedy, use a criteris‘n
Which, in itSelf, does not agree with the theories of many critics of tragedy.2
In light of the facts that the critics of Melville disagree concerning the
tragic implications of his novel, and that}?! an even larger number of critics
cannot agree on the nature of tragedy itself, the comparison of Melvillian
tragedy with ShakeSpearean tragedy is not a simple matter.

Furthermore, the task is complicated by a third consideration, which

61

also concerns the relationship between Wig as a tragedy and Shakespearean
tragedy. Melville recognized that his tragedy must be written in terms of his
own time and environment, writing in his review of Hawthorne's £123.32 that
"great geniuses are parts of the times, they themselves are the times, and
possess a correSpondent coloring." {or was he blind to the fact that
Shakespeare was not only a great artist, but also "Master William ShaKSpeare
of the shrewd, thriving business firm of Condell, ShakSpeare & 00., pmprietcrs
of the Globe Theatre in London." He realized when he wrote his essay that
Shakespeare also had to face the problem of imitation, that ShakeSpeare "by

a courtly author, of the name of Chettle, was looked at as an 'upstart crow,‘
beautified 'with other birds' feathered“; Here, then, is Melville's percep-
tion of another valuable lesson from Shakespeare, a lesson which he took to
heart much sooner than the lesson of the proper balance between good and evil.
His tragedy of Ahab could contain much that was Shakespearean, but in the end
it must "possess a correSpondent coloring."

What are the implications of Melville's statements, and how do they
concern the proper approach to the study of Shakespeare's influence upon
Helvillian tragedy? The first implication is that, in view of Melville's
own avowel in the Hawthorne review of the necessity of creating literature
that possesses a coloring of his own times, any attempt to prove that

Molly-Dick is a Shakespearean tragedy (as Olson appears to have done) is an
attempt to prove that the novel is something which its author may never have
intended it to be. It is further implied from Melville's statements in the
review that an attempt to judge whether Mobv-Dick is a true tragedy according
to the degree with which it approximates ShakeSpearean tragedy is unjust to
lielville on two counts. In the first place, must a tragedy be ShakeSpearean
to be a 1132 tragedy? Secondly, was Melville trfing to pattern his tragedy

to the letter after ShakeSpearean tragedy? The answer to both is No.

62

Melville rather made use of many of the elements of ShakeSpe arean tragedy,
modifying them and integrating them into his own pattern of thought and
conception of tragedy, the end result being a tragedy that is similar to
ShakeSpeare's in many ways, but not identical, nor need it be.

It is the aim of this study to show that Melville made use of Shakespearean
tragedy—that the influence was significant and instrumental in aiding him to
form his own concept of tragedy and tragic view of life. It is not my aim
to show that Melville succeeded in writing Shakespearean tragedy. Thus
though Moby—Dick and Shakespearean tragedy will be frequently compared and
contrasted in this study, the express purpose for such compariscn will be
to evaluate Shakespeare's influence on Melville and nothing more.

I

Various strggtgpalodefices appearing in Mom-Dick display perhaps most
obviously the influence of Shakespearean tragedy upon Melville. Although
Melville deplored the Shakespeare of "the tricky stage," the Shakespeare with
“the popularizing noise and show of broad farce and blood-besmeared tragedy,"
he could not, his response to the playwright was so intense, refrain from
employing the devices of tragecb'. Whether or not one agrees with Arvin that
Melville "would have written badly for the stage," it is erroneous to conclude,
as Arvin has, that Melville's "imagination was profoundly nondramatic."h The
numerous devices are indeed helpful in elevating the tone of the novel to
that of tragedy. Many of the most dramatic passages display Melville's
imaginative fire at its best. One only has to read "The Quarter Deck,"
"Sweet," or the climactic "The Candles“ to see'uelville's imaginative powers
at work within a dramatic framework. '

Once presented in "Knights and Squires ," those chapters which function

structurally as a dramatis personag, the main characters are frequently fixed

in their dramatic situations through the use of stage directions, such as

63

(Foresail risesfland discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning, and
lying in various attitudes, all singing in ghorus) in "Midnight, Forecastle"
(in itself a stage direction), and (Sudden, repeated flashes of lightning;

 

the nine flames leap lengthwise to thrice their previous height; Ahab, with
the rest, closes his eyes, his right hand pressed hard upon them.) in "The
Candles." Many of the. chapters are but one degree’removed from the theatre;
and in "Midnight, Forecastle," the form is completely theatrical. Ahab, Stubb,
and Starbuck leoquies, Lear-like ’or Macbeth-like; and
through these soliloquies, Melville effectively expresses, as Matthiessen
notes, Ahab's development, "since, isolated in his pride and madness, he
tended to voice his thoughts to himself alone."5 Furthermore, Melville's
soliloquies, like Shakespeare's, reveal the inner conflicts and tensions of
the chief characters. After the quarterdeck scene, for example, when Ahab
(flsplays his monomaniac defiance, Melville provides Ahab with a soliloquy to
reveal his inner despair, a monologue that also functions as a relief scene,
its quiet tone contrasting with the tension created by Ahab's diabolic,
Satanic communion ceremony in the previous chapter. Finally,- Melville's
“lumps, especially those of Ahab, contain the most frequent evidences of
Shakespearean language and speech. 5 V a d i H

39M??? “quiet or comic in tone, often sordid, are used to
relieve tension and to provide variety at various points in the novel. In
fact, alternation between calm and tempest is characteristic of the novel.
I"Without exception," Olson observes, "action rises out of calm, whether it is
the first chase of awhale, the appearance of the Spirit Spout, the storm, or
the final chase of Moby-Dick precipitously following upon 'The Symphony.'"6

Omens, premonitions, and prOphecies abound in itchy-Dick. Ahab with the
same name as the Biblical king who met a disastrous end, dogs licking his
blood; Ishmael's innkeeper LA. Coffin; the m, named after an extinct

6h

miss-:1 tribe; the strange prophecy of Fedallah; the spirit Spout; the

appfi. :Ling white squid; and the lifebuoy-coffin—-all hint at onrushing tragedy.
The element offthe supernatural enters into the novel frequently. The whole
Ahab—Fedallah relation is tinged with it.

Stubb considers Fedallah the devil
in disguise:

Do you believe that cock and bull story about his having been stowed away
m board ship? He's the devil, I say....Why, do ye see, the old man is
hard bent after that White Whale, and the devil there is trying to come

round him, and get him to swap away his silver watch, or his soul...and
1:11.611 he'll surrender Moby Dick.

Pedaljnh is perhaps a continuation of the Faust theme-«the compact with the

devil—but Melville was careful, as Shakespeare was, to leave room for

several possible interpretations. He presented Fedallah on three levels:

as a. supernatural being in compact with Ahab, as symbol of Ahab's madness and

diabolism, and as a mysterious, Oriental sailor. Yet, to use Melville's own

words, "that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last,"

for Fedfllah, too, was an ambiguity. a: two occasions Melville blends

Shakespearean supernaturalism into the context of the Ahab-Pedallah relation.

The "low laugh from the hold" in "The Quarter Deck," a supernatural effect

connected with Fedsllah and his mysterious crew, echoes Shakespeare's Ghost

below grotmd in Hamlet. Another one, more integral to the movement of the

novel, is Fedallah's prOphecy, a portent which received its inepiration from

Macbeth. Fedallah's strange prophecy that he will perish before Ahab and will

appear to Ahab again after death, and that "hemp only" can kill Ahab, has as
its source the witches' prophecy that

Macbethshall never vanquish'd be until
Great Bimam wood to high Dunsinane hill

Shall come against him.
Because of the seemingly impossible things that must occur before he can die,
Ahab, like Macbeth; feels ,. confident that he will succeed in his quest. Just

as the prophecy comes true in ShakeSpeare's most supernatural tragedy, so

65

FedaJJ—ah's prediction comes to pass in Hog-Dick. Much of Melville's final

chapters concerns the working—out of this prophecy.

Melville is also indebted to ShakeSpeare for the device of identifying
inward $911991"? and violence by external signs. Ahab'snviolence is symbolized

by the typhoon, much as the storm scene in Julius Caesar illustrates the

 

tumo :11 within the Roman state and within Brutus's mind. 7 When Ahab pledges

his crew to his purpose of chasing Roby-Dick, external embodiments-"the pre-
saging vibrations of the winds in the cordage," "the hollow flap of the sails
against the masts ," and "the subterranean laugh" from the hold—second Starbuck's
mm, "God keep nab-keep us all!" Yet by making these symbols quickly die
away, Melville also suggested by them the fleeting rebellion in Starbuck,

concluding, with Ahab in mind, that uwith little external to constrain us,

the innermost necessities in our being, these still drive us on.”

Melville uses properties for theatrical effect in MobZ-Dick. We have

already seen how Melville makes use of the whale's head for a soliloquy

remflmiscent of Hamlet‘s soliloquy to the skull. Aware of the theatrical

effect of the scene in {Richard II (which he marked in his edition of
ShakeSpeare) in which the King dashes the looking—glass to the ground,

Melville produced a similar effect by having Ahab throw his quadrant to the

dealt and trample it. One of the most subtle and pervasive uses of the stage

property is Melville's use of the doubloon, an idea he may have received from

the same source from which he derived Fedallah's prophecy. Vincent notes that

the place of the doubloon

is roughly equivalent to the place of the images issuing from the witches'
cauldron in Macbeth, images of the terrible truth to be but interpreted

\wximsically by Macbeth as portents of what he wishes to happen. He is
led to his doom by his headless wilfulness.8

As each character gazes upon the image on the coin, he confidently interprets

it to suit himself. The Spanish gold-coin becomes, to use Olson's term, "the

focus"9 through which the true aspects of the various characters are

66

crystallized, a character revelation. Ahab sees in the image his strength

and? ovrer, but also his own suffering. Starbuck views it religiously, seeing
the Trinity and a beacon of hepe "over all our gloom"; but he cannot face the

double image of life and quits it, "lest Truth shake me falsely."
both

Stubb sees
good and evil in the coin, but, true to his character, he whimsically

laugris it off. Flask cannot pierce into its symbolical meaning; he can only

estirnate its monetary value. Pip, in his mad wisdom, sees the doubloon as

“the ship's navel," and ironically is the only one to sense the true

_- fl—f

significance of the coin.

The M, which will be discussed later, enters into the

structure of Mobz-Dick; and althougi not peculiar to Shakespearean drama alone,

some of its characteristics as used by Melville are clearly Shakespearean. To

cite an example, it is simply accidental that Ishmael chooses to sail with

the Pequod when Queequeg leaves the choice of ship to him. More especially

Shakespearean in origin is the frequent chances for a reversal in the plot.

Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar for example, wove in several situations whereby

Caesar could have avoided his fate. If Caesar had heeded the Soothsayer's

"Beware the ides of March," or Calpurnia's plea, or Arteuddorus' schedule,
among others, he might have foiled the conspirators' plot; Iago's intrigue

with Othello is fraught with just such dangers. Melville, too, has called

upon this device in Mom-Dick. The possibility that Ahab, restored to a

proper balance, may relinquish his demoniac obsession is suggested in the
scenes between Ahab and Pip, Ahab and Starbuck, and in the meeting between
the m and the Samuel Enderby.

Olson and Matthiessen have argued that the novel, considered broadly,
has a rise and fall like that of Elizabethan trac;edy.10 Matthiessen, in
particular, has analyzed the novel in detail from this viewpoint. The first

twenty-three chapters, __ with Ishmael as chorus narrating the action antecedent

67

to 3118 voyage, serve as a_sor_t of prelude to the drama. With chapter 21; the

drama begins, the first act reaching its peak in the quarterdeck scene where

Ahab forces his will upon the crew, receiving their pledge of consent to his

0
mad quest. There follow several chapters—soliloquies-—where each of the

important figures is presented in a less intense key. Melville displays his

dramatic sense in this first sequence by delaying Ahab's entrance until

considerable uncertainty and apprehension has been created. In the following

inte rJude Melville develops the main themes and symbols of the novel in

"itchy—Dick" and "The Inliteness of the Whale.“ The next sequence, including

several encounters with other ships which serve as warnings to Ahab as to the
futility of his quest and his itemized survey of the whaling industry, reaches
a second peak of intensity in the encounter with the Jeroboam, its mad,

shrieking Gabriel admonishing Ahab to beware a blasphemer's end. The novel

enteI‘s into the third act with the meeting of the Samuel Enderjay, whose

 

—‘

mm plan... ..

captain @53th am to Mogul"TDiclt:“The—"contrastfibetween Captain Boomer‘s
acquiescence and Ahab's determination emphasizes the extremes to which Ahab's

mania has carried him and the folly of his revengeful purpose. As Thompson

and Olson note,11 the climax in Mobz-Dick comes in the hear-like storm scene

AS the "stage" blazes with the fiery corposants, Ahab blaSphemously declares
that the "right worship" of the fiery God "is defiance."g , Thereafter, the end
iW’ and the falling action, moving inevitably towards a whirling vortex,

reminiscent of Poe, reaches the catastrophe, symbolically embodying the

annihilation of all existence save Ishmael. Although Melville may have

criticized the more visible aspects of Shakespearean tragedy, he nevertheless
lowered the curtain“ of his drama in the destructive, "blood-besmeared" fashion
of flames—ma King Lear.

However, such an analysis of the structure of Mobz—Dick should not be

68

misleading, for the novel is too diverse and varied to be forced into such a
cleaxbcut pattern. Moby—Dick defies such conclusive classification. It is
dangerous to conclude from these "tendencies" that the novel closely parallels
an Elizabethan tragedy in structure, for it contains much that is impossible

for the stage. The cetelogy is a good example. Any stage presentation of

noby—Dfick would necessitate the condensation and elimination of much of the

whaling matter, yet much of the success in its presentation lies in its being

clothed in narrative. Arvin concludes that

the structure of the book has only a superficial analogy with that of
tragedy or of drama in general. The vital character of dramatic struc-
ture...is concentration; the vital character of this book's structure
is expansiveness. A tragedy, in form, is ideally close, swift, and
mdsivertible; Mobz-Dick, on the contrary, though in its own sense firm
md umrasteful, is structurally open, loose, slow-paced, and ample.12

Some of ShakeSpeare's tragedies point in the direction of expansiveness, as

Arvin recomizes,13 especially King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra, which,

judged by the markings and comments in Melville's edition and the frequency

of the allusions to the plays in Moby-Dick, impressed Melville considerably.
Yet as Bradley declares,

King Lear, as a whole, is imperfectly dramatic, and there is something in
its very essence which is at war with the senses, and demands a purely

imaginative realisation. It is therefore ShakeSpeare's greatest work,
but it is not...the best of his plays....1h

From -the standpoint of form, then, though £933 is not a great tragedy in the
sense that Macbeth is, no one can deny that Shakespeare comes to grips in it
with the tragic implications of life. Moby—Dick,too, is imperfect structurally
as a tragedy, though at the same time, broadly speaking, there is a rise and
fall movement within the structure of the novel which very conceivably
indicates a ShakeSpearean influence. But we must be careful not to judge the
novel on this basis alone. The subject matter of the book is as tragic in

purport as that of Lear, whatever the stage possibilities of either.

69
II
To examine the relationship of dramatic structure between Shakespeare

and Lielville is to consider only part of Melville's debt to Shakespearean

tragedy. The influence of Shakespeare also pervades the substance of

Lieldlle's tragedy. Earlier in this chapter I. mentioned that it is consider—

ably' difficult to determine what ShakeSpearean tragedy is ,. yet for purposes

of comarison between Melville and Shakespeare, some norm or basis is

neces sary. Therefore, I have selected Bradley's analysis of the substance of

Shakespearean tragedy as a guide in my discussion.15
(1) The first fact of ShakeSpearean tragedy is that a tragic story is

concerned primarily with one person, as Moby-Dick is concerned primarily with

Ahab - The influence of ShakeSpeare perhaps explains why Melville reduced in

his revision the importance of Ishmael and Queequeg. During the first fifteen

chapters of Mom-Dick, Ishmael, the narrator, is the central character; and

Queequeg's role in the story seems destined to be significant. Yet, as pointed
out :‘Ln chapter 3, Ishmael soon almost ceases to be a character at all, and
Queqlleeg's importance becomes negligible. When in the "insight passage"
Melville recorded his decision to recast Ahab as "a mighty pageant creature,

fomled for noble tragedies," he broke with his usual procedure of having the

narrator, as in Redburn and White-Jacket for example, serve as the chief

character. Furthermore, the necessity of enmhasizing one person as the chief

character required Melville to eliminate another potential hero, already
introduced as a character of some importance. Hence Bulkington after chapter
23 disappears from the narrative altogether.

(2) Another characteristic of Shakespearean tragedy is that the story

leads up to and» includes the death of the hero, as Mobv—Dick leads inevitably

to the death of Ahab.

(3) Thirdly, acolrcling to Bradley's analysis Shakespearean tragedy

7O

depicts the troubled period precedent to his death, the story being, then,

for the most part a tale of exceptional suffering and calamity, usually

uneape cted and contrasted to previous happiness.

Meg-Dick depicts Ahab

durirmg the troubled part of his life. From the first of Ahab's appearances,

Melville presents him as suffering and despairing. Constantly throughout the

novel the stricken Ahab is contrasted with the strong-willed, proud Ahab.

When. Ahab ascends the quarterdeck for the first time, Ishmael observes that
"moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all

the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe." Ahab‘s first

soliloquy, in “Sunset," reveals Ahab'e intense feeling of me and deSpair.
Furthermore, until he lost his leg to the white whale, Ahab seems to have
been. happy. Peleg describes him to Ishmael as "a good man—not a pious good
man

like Bildad, but a swearing good man.“ Peleg had no doubt that Ahab's

temporary modiness resulting from his encounter with the whale would not

P333 eff. "Besides, my boy,‘ Peleg exclaimed, "he has a wife...a sweet,

”Signed girl. Think of that; by tint sweet girl that old man has a child;
hold. ye then there can be any utter, hapeless harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad;

Stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!"
(it) Another element of Shakespearean tragedy, writes Bradley, is that

the herofe suffering and calamity generally extends beyond the chief char-

acter,_affecting many others, often striking down innocent victims, so as to

113193 the final scene a scene of woe. Thus in MobZ-Dick the suffering of Ahab
touches the whole crew of the Pegged; all share in Ahab' a calamity in the end,
except Ishmael.

(5) Tragedy with Shakespeare always concerns, persons of high degree, or

station, in life. Bradley feels this characteristic of ShakeSpeare's tragedies
is important, for the greater the man, the more not only will his fall affect

those around him, but also the greater will the sense of contrast become

71

bower: the helplessness of man and the omnipotence of fate and fortune. In
the crazed figure of Lear we see

A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch,
Past speaking of in a ld.ng....

That Melville was deeply concerned with this aspect of Shakespearean tragedy
is evident from his constant attempt to raise the poor old Nantucket captain
to he roic stature. Melville has Peleg remark to Ishmael: “He' s a grand,

mgom, god-like man, Captain Ahab....Ahab's above the common....he's Ahab,

boy, and Ahab of old, thou lmowest, was a crowned Icing!" In "The Advocate"

and " Postscript” Helville attempts to raise the level of whaling to a state of
dignity to provide a proper setting for a great tragic hero. Still endeavor-
ing to justify Ahab as a heroic figure and having argued that greatness can

be f ound in all men, Melville closes his presentation of his dramatis personae
in chapter 26 by apologizing:

 

It, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall
hereafter ascribed high qualities, though dark; weave round then tragic
Races; if even the most noumful, perchance the most abased, among them
n1, shall at times lift himself to exalted mounts; if I shall touch that
Wbrknan's arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow over
h:Ls disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics bear me out in
it, thou just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one royal mantle of
humanity over all m kind! Bear me out in it, thou great democratic

G'OdluJ‘hou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy
Selectest champions from the kingly cosmons; bear me out in it, 0 God!

Melville, realizing that his story was in reality a tale of whaling,

kn" his novel must have a "correspondent coloring." He knew that "this

august dignity" could not be that "dignity of kings m1 robes, but that
abouncfing dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God"-that
'just Spirit of Equality." Melville again attacked the problem in chapter 33,
5The specksynder," this time concentrating on Ahab specifically:
But Ahab, mfaptain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket grim-
ness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and Kings, I

must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old whale-hunter like
him; and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings and housings are

72

denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be
plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in
the unbodied air!

'l'tms at this point it may be said, therefore, that Melvillian tragedy
follows Shakespearean tragedy in its postulation of a story of exceptional
suffering and calamity, ultimately leading to the death of a man of high
station, with but one irportant difference. Melville's subject matter pre-
vented him from giving Ahab the "majestical trappings'and housings" of the
typical Shakespearean king. As Melville told Duyckinck on March 3, 18h9,

”The Declaration of Independence makes a difference."16 With this in mind,

he fell back upon the democratic spirit and transcendental optimism, which
declared a belief in the individual's potentialities for greatness despite its
awareness of the potential evil in man, for justification of Ahab's dignity
as a tragic hero.

(6) However, Bradley reminds us that Shakespearean tragedy is much more
inclusive than this narrow medieval concept, for it places nan in a calamity
for which he has no responsibility. The fact is that in Shakespeare's tragedies
the bad fortunes of the hero do not just simply happen; they are results of the
actions of men. Shakespeare's hero is never placed innocently in a vortex of
circumstances; he always contributes in some measure to his om downfall.
Though Ahab declares, "I an the Fates' lieutenant," nevertheless, he contrib-
utes, through his own actions, to his own disaster. Thus Starbuck exclaims
before the third and final day of the chase: "Oh! Ahab not too late is it,
even now, the third day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is
thou, thou, that madly seekest him!" Tragedy from this point of view
postulates that men, not the gods,-are the agents of their woe. Shakespearean
and Melvillian tragedy take into account both approaches, for their heroes are
both agmtagfmtheir trage‘dy‘and‘victims of chance.

(7) Furthermore, the deeds of the hero, which bring the calamity, are

73

characteristic of the doer. Thus not only does the catastrophe follow in-
evitably from the actions of men, but also the chief source of these actions
is character. Ahab is willful and proud and moody. These are dominating
traits in Ahab, his tragic flaws; these very characteristics are the cause of
his mad, heedless chase.

Bradley believes Shakespeare's main interest lay in the characteristic
deeds of the hero. This is true of Melville's Moby-Dick also, although I do
not discount Melville's interest in accident and fate. The tragedy of Ahab
perhaps may never have occurred if Ahab, had not lost his leg to Moby-Dick.
From this viewpoint, the "accident” of the encounter with the Whale is the
precipitant of the tragecbr. 0n the other hand, it is equally true, perhaps
more so, that if Ahab's character were like that of the captain of the
Samuel Enderby, no tragecb' would have resulted. Moreover, thenatural
hazards of the whaling industry made Ahab's injury not unusual. The only
thing "unusual" about the incident was that it happened to Ahab, for whereas
Baby-Dick only struck off Captain Boomer's arm, the white whale not only cut
off Lhab's leg, but inflicted a mortal wound to Ahab's pride and individual-
istic will. Therefore, Ahab‘s character—not his lost leg—provides the
prim mobile of his tragedy. Shakespeare's dictum that "character is destiny,"
containing its share of truth, is, then, misleading, since it is for neither
Shakespeare nor Melville the whole truth.

(8) The sum of Shakespearean tragedy is more than the total of such
factors as suffering and calamity in the hero, the characteristic actions of
the hero, and fate, as Bradley notes. The playwright, for example, occasion-
ally presents abnormal conditions of the mind, such as somambulism, halluci-
nations, and insanity, though Bradley is careful to point out that these are

not presented by Shakespeare as the motivating force of important deeds of

dramatic moment. Lear's madness is not the cause of calamity; it is the

7h

result of conflict.

In Hog-Dick, likewise, it is a mistake to say that Ahab decided to
chase Roby-Dick because Fedallah's interpretation of his dream led Ahab to
believe that he would succeed. His dream was instead the result of conflict;
Ahab would have continued his quest whether he had dreamed or not. His
dream serves only to emphasize the intensity of his desire to continue, for
he heedlessly rationalizes it into another justification for his acts—but
his acts thereafter do not originate from it. In fact, the real implications
of the dream would have turned him fromthe quest had he chosen to follow
them. Likewise Pip's madness has no real influence upon Ahab's catastrophe.
Pip brings Ahab's hmnanity temporarily to the forefront, but he ultimately
fails to derail Ahab from his iron purpose.

Some critics have observed that Ahab is mad, and because he is mad he
acts as he does. 0n the surface of things this appears to be true, yet upon
closer examination of Ahab's madness, the conclusion is highly questionable.
Melville in chapter 141 makes it clear that Ahab did not become mad because of
his dismembennsnt. Only after the "long months of days and weeks" during the
voyage home when A

Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one hanunock...then it was, that
his tom bow and gashed soul bled into one another; and so interfusing,
made him mad...it was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the encounter,
that the final monomania seized him....
“It is not probable ," Melville remarks, "that this monomania in him took its
instant rise at the precise time of his bodily dismembementd' Thus Melville
emlains that: Ahab's madnessrlike Lear'sr, is the- result of the conflict and
angzmstnoggmamggaehodeoui,‘ not the origin. At first Ahab was “a raving
lunatic." The more visible manifestations of madness soon left, yet “Ahab,
in his hidden self, raved on." "Human madness," continues Melville, "is often-

times a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have

75

but become transfigured into some still subtler form.u Ahab's insanity
differed from ordinary Icinds in that he retained control of his intelligent
faculties. Here Ahab reflects the King's judgment of Barflet's apposed
insanity: "Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." During Ahab‘s
previous "broad madness, not a jot of his great intellect had perished," and
Melville summarises the unique effect of this "subtler f orm" of insanity by
saying that
his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned
all its concmtrated cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from
having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a
thousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon
any one reasonable object.
Ahab, then, is the author of his own tragedy just as Macbeth, who also can be
said to have a "madness” in his obsession for power, brings about his own
downfall. Ahab is not mad in the sense that he is unaware of his actions,
or their consequences. His madness lies in his inability to deter from his
purpose in spite of his awareness of them.

(9) Bradley demonstrates that another factor, the supernatural, often
contributes to the action of Shakespeare's tragedies, yet it is- always placed
in close relation with character, confirming the immrd movements. already
present in the character and never removing the hero from his reSponsibility
or capacity for dealing with his problem. J In Hog-Dick Fedallah's relation—
ship to Ahab 'eftenqpartakes of the supernatural. Fedallah frequently appears
as a confirmation of Ahab's monomaniac willfulness—thus when Ahab smashes the
quadrant upon the deck, "a sneering trimnph that seemed meant for Ahab...
passed over the mute, motionless Parsee's face." The true significance of the
Ahab-Fedallah relation is difficult to ascertain. ‘Various interpretations
were presented earlier in the discussion of the structure of Mom-Dick. Perhaps

Melville, having already established Ahab's course of action, meant Fedallah

to connote a bond with the devil, to serve as a reminder to Ahab of his

76

pledged purpose.

(10) Action in ShakeSpeare can generally be defined as conflict, which
is of two kinds: external and internal. Both are always present in
ShakeSpearean‘tragedy. Tragedy in which the hero with an undivided soul
opposes hostile forces is not the Shakespearean type. The external conflict
in Moby-Dick, if we can call it such, is hard to evaluate; it certainly is
not ghakespearean. The main conflict is between Ahab and Moby-Dick, yet the
whale never appears until the final catastrophe. In addition, the role of
Moby-Dick is somewhat passive; that is, he never openly seeks Ahab and, regard-
less of his ferocity, strikes only when attacked. While Shakespearean tragedy
poses an external conflict between human groups, Ahab opposes a manual. It
is true that when pursued it had fought with a seemingly "unexampled, intelli-
gent maligiity," but this is symbolic rather than literal. The true signifi-
cance of the whale as an Opposing force rests in its symbolical representation
of Ahab's inner conflicts. Therefore, Ahab's conflict with the whale is
extemal only in a loose sense. It would be more correct to say that conflict
in the novel exists primarily within Ahab, not without. There seems to be no
eztemal conflict of any significance between Ahab and his crew, except perhaps
Starbuck, whose resistance poses more of a potential rather than an actual
danger to Ahab. But to consider Starbuck an enemy or opposing force in the
sense that Iago is to Othello, or Antony to Brutus, is impractical.

(11) In Shakespearean tragedy, the hero usually is torn by an inward
struggles; In this respect, Melville's novel is Shakespearean. Actually, as
suggested above, the conflict with Moby-Dick remains within Ahab until the last
three chapters, only then externalized. This conflict arises out of Moby's
injury to Ahab, but it originates primarily not in his physical injury, but in
the more significant and permanent injury to his soul, leading first to complete

lunacy and later to a more special, qualified "machiess," wherein Ahab retained

77

his intellectual faculties. Melville in chapter hl describes how Ahab's

conflict with the white whale came to involve within his mind much more than

mere revenge-for a physical dismemberment:
Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal
encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vincfictiveness against the whale, all
the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to iden-
tify with him [Moby—Dick , not only all his bodily woes, but all his
intellectual and spirit exasperations. The White Whale swam before him
as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies Which some
deep men feel eating in them....he pitted himself, all mutilated against
it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of
things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes
the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to
crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in

Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general
rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down....

Ahab, therefore, transferred to the whale all his mental morbidity, all
his inner frustrations derived from the inscrutability of the very nature of
things—therby making the evil and irrationality of life "practically
assailable" in the whale. The whale, a personification of Ahab's "intellectual
and spiritual exasperations," becomes a manifestation of Ahab's inward struggle
with the ambiguities of life. Throughout this conflict in Ahab, two predom-
inating characteristics struggle for ascendancy. Time and time again, Melville,
in a manner reminiscent of Shakespeare, places Ahab's willfulness and pride in
juxtaposition with his deSpair and morbidity. When Ahab makes his first
appearance on the quarterdeck, Ishmael contrasts Ahab's "determinate, unsur-
renderable wilfulness" with the crucifindon of woe upon his face. In "Simset"
Ahab's soliloquy reveals this fundamental cleavage in his nature; likewise,
'when he views the doubloon, he sees himself in this two-fold aSpect. These

two qualities also come into play in "Ahab and the Carpenter" and "The

Symphony. " 17

(12) The concentration of conflict on inward struggle emphasizes in
Mona-Dick, as it does in Shakespeare's plays, the fact that the action issuing
from this conflict is essentially the expression of character. It is true of

78

both Shakespeare's heroes and Melville's Ahab that there is in them, to
use Bradley's words,
a marked one-sidedness, a prediSposition in some particular direction; a
total incapacity, in certain circumstances, of resisting the force which
draws in this direction; a fatal tendency to identify the whole being
with one interest, object, passion, or habit of mind.]-8
This is usually identified as the tragic trait or character flaw. But though
this tragic flaw is fatal to the hero, it is also a touch of greatness.
Ahab has several traits which, when combined, account for his decision to
pit himself, “all mutilated," against the whale. First of all, there is
Ahab's prediSposition to morbidity. Peleg says that Ahab "was never very
jolly,u and that Melville intended this to be one of Ahab's fundamental
traits is evident from the "insight passage":
Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by
birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful over-ruling
morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great are
made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, 0 young ambition,
all mortal greatness is but disease.”

However morbidity alone does not account for Ahab's tragedy; this quality
by itself is neither admirable nor tragic. Ahab has another quality which,
added to morbidity, tended to channel his whole being into one-sidedness, a
single habit of mind, a willful and determined drive to self-assertion. In
Ahab we have m extreme example of the Emersonian individualist. Self-reliant,
individualistic, striving for certainty in life, he courageously attenpts,
like Thoreau, to drive life into a corner. This implicit faith in the
possibilities of the individual is admirable, yet at the same time fraught
with danger, for Ahab's egotistical individualism, though admirable in that
it gave him a desire to make life purposive, also led him away from the
common stream of humanity into isolation and blindness. Ahab's extreme

pride, or self-love, deepened the gulf bemeen himself and his fellow man.

A combination of morbidity, self-dependence, willfulness, and pride, Ahab's

79

character inevitably leads to his destruction because such traits result in
complete independence from God and human brotherhood. and thorough-going denial
of htmian imperfection. He has an uncontrollable drive to self-assertion, an
ambitious, irresistible desire to tear the veil of life from its profound
mysteries. He cannot accept the moral of Father Mapple's sermon that to obey
yourself is to disobey God, that for a finite being to attempt to know
infinity or eternity is blasphemous, “for what is man that he should live out
the lifetime of his God?" Ahab's character prevents him from accepting, with

humility, the limitations of life; he would not have accepted Raphael's

dictum in Paradise Lost:

Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid,

Leave them to God above, him serve and fear;
....Heaven is for thee to high

To know what passes there; be lowlie wise:

Think onely what concernes thee and thy being;

Dream not of other Worlds....

Ahab could not "be lowlie wise"; his pride, his willful and ambitious
desire to know the unknowable, and his egotistical self-reliance must always
prevent him. Ahab's tragic m is expressed best in his speech to
Starbuck in the quarterdeck scene. "All visible objects, man," says Ahab
in defending his avowed search for the white whale,

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 blasphennr,
man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me....Who's over me? Truth hath

no confines.
Ahab, steeped in pride, outraged by the "inscrutable malice" in the Moby—
Dick-universe, declares his unconditional self—reliance; his isolation is
complete. Accorcb'ngly, though external conflict in the true Shakespearean

80

sense is absent in MOW-91315: the novel does have a kinship with the English

 

dramatist's tragedies in its emphasis upon internal conflict arising out of
fundamental tragic traits. Ahab's tragedy originates in his very character.
(13) One more aspect of Shakespearean tragedy remains to be considered,
mive_r:ality.20 ShakeSpeare's tragedies reveal much more than merely ordinary
people placed in ordinary but unfortunate circumstances. Instead, we have
in Shakespeare exceptional peeple—heroes of lofty and heroic grandeur—fixed
in a sequence of events that not only affect them, but both those with whom
they come into contact and the ultimate power behind the universe itself;
from them we gain an impression that life in all its vastness, depth, and
meaning has been presented on the stage. Many elements contribute to this
impression of universality. As the tragic dignity of the hero is important
to the feeling in Shakespeare, so Melville's attempt to elevate Ahab to
lofty heights helps to create a feeling of universality in his novel.
Shakespeare's use of the supernatural and of fate adds to the sense of the
infinite, indefinable, and intangible forces of the universe, much as the
subplot in Shakespeare (as in King Lear) gives the impression that the actions
and events in which the chief characters are caught are not isolated.
Gloucester's ill-treatment at the hands of his son Edmund tends to give more
universality to Lear's suffering at the hands of Goneril and Regan. In
Itchy-Dick supernaturalism and fate also give the impression of forces at
work beyond the control of human beings; the Town-Ho story functions somewhat
like a subplot to the action on the £33m. External symbolism, as well as
symbolism concerning what the whale represents, devices for creating
universality, aid in elevating the significance of the novel from that of

a simple revengeful pursuit to a quest after the mystery of the universe.
In conclusion, this discussion has attempted to show the similarities

between the substance of ShakeSpearean tragedy and Melvillian tragedy.

81

It demonstrates that Melville conceived much of Ahab's tragedy in
Shakespearean terms; yet all things considered, to Melville alone must go
the credit for his unique and special handling of conflict, and for creating
within Ahab tragic traits which were implicit in the ideal character traits
of his age. I
III

Having considered independently the kinship Melville's novel has with
the various elements found in ShakeSpearean tragedy, I should now like to
consider specifically the tragedy of Ahab as a whole, examining at the same
time its affinities with ' g Lear and Macbeth. This section will also
involve a discussion of Olson's and Matthiessen's judgments of Mom-Dick as
a Shakespearean tragedy.

A passage checked by Melville in Antony and Cleopatra suggests Ahab's

problem in Hopi-Dick:

Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious,

Is to be frighted out of fear; and in that mood

The dove will peck the estridge; and. I see still,

A diminution in our captain's brain

Restores his heart: when valour preys on reason,

It eats the sword it fights with.
"In exactly what way Ahab, fumious and without fear," Olson says, “retained
the instrument of his reason as a lance to fight the White Whale is a central
concern of Melville's in hog-Die . In his Captain there was a diminution in

his heart." 21

The tragedy of Ahab lies in what Melville perceived later in
mfirfl that IIthe cultivation of the brain cats out the heart."22 Ahab's
sensitive pride, natural brooding nature, and extreme individualism lead him
to undertake his fatal quest. He becomes alienated from his fellow man and
from all the human qualities that stem from the heart. As the search for
Ifioby-Dick continues, Ahab gradually loses all contact with humanity. Indi-

vidualism, an ideal of Melville's age, causes Ahab to become so estranged

82

from those below him and the heavens above him that he shouts, "Who's oVer
me?" Melville realized that exaltation of intellect, reason, and individ-
ualism in a democracy could also result in anarchy and tyranny; Ahab becomes
virtually a dictator. But the ascendancy of his brain over his heart does
not leave him without remorse and suffering. In chapter 37 Ahab remarks that
the sunset no longer soothes him:
This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me,
since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the
low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! dammed
in the midst of Paradise!
Ahab's dilemma is that his brain is destroying his heart; his soul has lost
its consort with humanity. His tragedy results, as Matthiessen notes, from
the separation of perception and feeling.23 Melville recognized this danger
when he underlined Gloucester's comment in King Lear on the kind of man

that will not see
Because he doth not feel.

When Ahab is attracted to Pip, his "humanities" are partially retrieved;
but not for long, for he soon withdraws again into spiritual isolation. The
Ahab-Pip relation is reminiscent of Lear's relationship to the Fool. Like
Lear's Fool, Pip spoke "the same madness of vital truth" that Melville had
admired in Shakespeare's ”dark“ characters. As the Fool serves as the foil
to Lear, so Pip touches. Ahab's “inmost centre." "Thou art tied to me by cords
woven of my heart strings," says Ahab. In King Lear, during the storm scene,
Lear's speech to his Fool reveals his awakening sense of values and his
emerging humanity:

My "its begin to turn.
Come on, my boy; how dost, my boy? art cold?
I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.

Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That's sorry yet for thee.

In a like marmer, Pip brings Ahab's stifled humanity to the surface. Ahab

83

says:
Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse
horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye believers in
gods all goodness and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods
oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not
what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Gone!
I feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an
hperor's!

Yet lurldng beneath Ahab's sympathetic respmse to Pip is defiance.
Ahab, who cannot wholly and permanently .respond to the suffering of others,
remains to the end selfishly concerned with his own suffering. "I do suck
most wondrous philosophies from thee!" says Ahab of Pip, but he refuses to
admit his dependence: "There is thatiin thee, poor lad, which I feel too
curing to my malady. Like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes
my most desired health." How incomplete is his response to his heart is
illustrated in his warning to Pip: "Weep so, and I will murder thee!" Ahab's
tragedy, then, is not that he does not recognize the consequences of his
quest, for he does. It stems rather from his inability to give play to his
natural"lovings and longings" and thereby desist from the pursuit. In this
reapect Ahab differs from Lear. Lear's response to the Fool's suffering
opens the way to his transformation; from it he gains meaning, values, and
wisdom. But Ahab is not changed by the comprehension of his wrongs. During
the final catastrophe, Ahab is defiant to the end:

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the
last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's
sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to
one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to
pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned
whale! T_h_u_s_, I give up the spear!
During the final chase Ahab suffers increasingly, but it is a selfish suffer-
ing. His fatal pride and selfistmess reach the apex when, at the sight of
the sinking ship, Ahab cannot feel the tremendous suffering and waste of

others' lives. He can only speak of his own grief and loneliness: "0h,

8h

lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my tOpmost greatness lies in
my topmost grief."
Olson, in comparing Moby—Dick as a tragechr to King mar, contends that
through the agency of Pip, Ahab finds repose and quietness.2h He further
suggests that Ahab becomes less angry, stridmt, and defiant, although he
does not go so far as to identify Ahab with humanity during the final disas-
tar?S Ahab may thus have been humbled to the extent that he could ask God to
bless the captain of the Rachel, but when Olson suggests that Ahab was
humbled like Lear,26 he has pressed the. comparison between Lear and Moby-Dick
too far. With the same breath that Ahab asks God to bless Captain Gardiner,
he utters: "and may I forgive myself, but I must go.” Ahab had neither the
humility to ask God's forgiveness for himself, nor to help a fellow captain
in the search of his son. Olson concludes by implying that the ending of
logy-Dick evokes a catharsis in the reader:
What Pip wrought in Ahab throws over the end of Mo¥-Dick a veil of
grief, relaxes the tensions of its hate, and permi a sympatly for the
stricken man that Ahab‘s insistent diabolism up to the storm would not
have evoked. The end of this fire-forked tragedy is enriched by a pity
in the very jaws of terror.2

Matthiessen, on the other hand, feels it is the lack of poignancy that

distinguishes Ahab from Lear. In Moby-Dick, he says,
there is a crucial divergence...er Lear, where the central movement is
the purgation of the headstrong and arrogant King. In that scene on the
heath where he finally becomes aware of the blindness in his former pomp,
where he both sees and feels the plight of other human beings, and prays
for all I'poor naked wretches“ whereso'er they are, he is no longer a
vain monarch but a fellow man.

No such purgation transforms Ahab. He perceives in Pip' s attachment

the quality that might cure his own malady, but he refuses to be de- 28

flected from his pursuit by the stirring of any sympathy for others....
Not only does Ahab lack purgation, but the audience fails to experience
catharsis, Matthiessen feels. He concludes that Ahab's tragedy

admits no adequate moral recognition. The catharsis is, therefore,
partially frustrated, since we cannot reapond, as we can in Icar, to

85

Ahab's deliverance from the evil forces in which he has been immersed...

When talking with Pip and Starbuck, he perceives the human consequences

of his action. He is momentarily touched, but he is not moved from his

insistence that his course is necessary. In his death therefore...colos-

sal pride meets its ri htful end, and there can be no unmixed pity for

him as a human being.25 '

Is Matthiessen, or Olson, right? Perhaps the final answer will depend
on one's own reaction to the novel. The problem of judging Mom-Dick as a
tragechr is difficult; although both Matthiessen and Olson judge the novel by
the same criteria (that is, according to the degree to which it conforms to
the theory of catharsis and to King Lear), they still arrive at different
conclusions. Furthermore, even their basis, that is, their starting point,
is spam to question. Nicoll and Lucas, for example, both question the
necessity of catharsis or purgation in tragedy, Nicoll also listing pity as
of minor importance.30 I should agree with Matthiessm's judgment that
Melville I'had composed a tragedy incomplete by Shakespearean standards,“31
but with this important qualification. Melville's tragedy is incomplete
according to Shakespearean stmdards as exemplified in King Lear, but not
necessarily as indicated in Macbeth. In fact, Ahab's tragechr appears to have
much in common with Macbeth's. Both tragedies result from the inability of
their heroes to deliver themselves from the forces of evil in which they are
immersed.32 Both suffer from the pangs of conscience, but both remain defiant
and proud to the end. But the comparison, as in Lear, must not be pressed
too far. The aim of each man's ambition differs, and we might conclude that
Ahab's attempt to penetrate the irrational nature of life is more heroic than
Macbeth's quest for a kingdom.
In smary, the important thing to be gained from a discussion of the

tragedy of Ahab is not that it is complete or incomplete by ShakeSpearean
standards, but rather that Melville in writing Ahab's tragedy in Mom-Dick

incomorated many ideas from Lear and Macbeth and the other plays. Moreover,

86

we mustnot forget that Melville gave his tragedy of Ahab "a correspondent
coloring." After Melville had examined his age, given over as it was to a
profound faith in the individual, reason, and progress, he found danger
lurking within its beliefs. Emaltation of individualism, reason, and prog-
ress, Melville proclaimed, could lead to hatred, independence at the expense
of brotherhood, isolation, fatal pride, separation of heart and intellect,
loss of humanity, impossible goals, and ultimate annihilation.

IV

The final. portion of this chapter will contrast and compare Melville's
tragic vision with Shakespeare's. I believe that in ShakeSpeare's tragic
world, Melville found his own preoccupations objectified. ShakeSpeare con-
firmed his vision, and gave him the key he needed for the expression of it;
with it Melville wrote what perhaps is the greatest tragedy of his times.

As a norm for comparing Shakespeare's tragic view with Melville's, I
shall use Bradley's analysis.33 Bradley explains that the central impression
in Shakespeare, one closely related to the greatness of the tragic hero, is
the "impression of waste.” The most important aSpect of this waste is that
it involves the tragic destruction of good. If Shakespeare's concept of the
tragic world merely postulated an order which destroys evil, we should have
no tragedy; the tragedy is, Bradley explains, that this involves the waste
of good.3h

Observing that the ShakeSpearean hero, however great he may be, still
through a combination of circumstance and Characteristic action ultimately
destroys himself, Bradley concludes, then, that the tragic hero must not be
the ultimate power in Shakespeare's tragic world. What, then, is this
power? In answering this question, Bradley attempts to find a theory which

will also explain why good is wasted. The views that the ultimate power is
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good, Bradley rejects, believing the former view allows no room for the fact
that the hero, through actions issuing from character, brings about much of
his own downfall, and.believing the latter, though accounting for the de—
struction of evil, does not account for the tragic waste of good.35 ‘

Next, Bradley presents his own theory of ShakeSpeare's tragic concept of
efistence. He suggests that Shakespeare portrays an universe governed by a
kind of "moral" order, not of justice and merit, but simply of good and. evil.
This order or power, as pictured by ShakeSpeare, is "akin to good and alien
from evil"; it, in its demand for perfection and good, relentlessly and
violently destroys imperfection and evil.36 However, this evil against which
the moral order struggles is not outside the order but within it; thus, Bradley
asserts, this power, in spite of its violent reaction toward evil, must
paradoxically produce that evil. 37 Bradley concludes:

Thus we are left at last with an idea showing tw0 sides or aspects
which we can neither separate nor reconcile. The whole or order against
which the individual part shows itself powerless seems to be animated
by a passion for perfection: we cannot otherwise explain its behavior
towards evil. Yet it appears to engender this evil within itself, and
in its effort to overcome and emel it it is agonised with pain, and
driven to mutilate its own substance and to lose not only evil but
priceless good....We remain confronted with the ineiplicable fact...of
a world travailing for perfection, but bringing to birth, together with
glorious good, an evil which it is able to overcome only by self-torture
and self-waste. And this fact or appearance is tragedy.38

Whether we agree or not with Bradley's theory of Shakespeare's concept
of tragechr, we must admit that he has hit upon what was probably one of
Shakespeare's major concerns during his tragic period—his concern with the

nature of good and evil, its sources and ambiguity. That ShakeSpeare con-
sciously envisaged such a moral order as Bradley describes is perhaps im-
possible to determine, but we can be reasonably sure that ShakeSpeare
conceived the major tragic fact of life as he saw it as the ineiplicable

mystery of good and evil. Yet ShakeSpeare envisaged life as meaningful and
worthwhile also. Tragedy which postulates a purely evil order is not

88

tragedy in the Shakespearean sense, for Shakespearean tragedy also maintains
that good is a positive force in the universe. Because Shakespeare recog-
nized this fundamental chalism, the presence of good and evil principles in
the universe, though irrationally and ambiguously interrelated, he maintained
a kind of equilibrimn. When he wrote in 1.3a}; that "Ripeness is all," he
recognized the necessity of such a balmce. To become completely absorbed
in the illusive and ambiguous nature of evil, that is, to abandon a balanced
view of life, Shakespeare perceived at this time, might result both in a loss
of artistic control and in mental frustration. 39 Therefore, although
Shakespeare, to use Melville's words, probed "at the very axis of reality,"
he stopped short of any solution to the mysteries involved in his tragedies.
He accepted as the cardinal fact of life its incongruity and illusion but

chose not to solve what lay beyond human ken.
In examining Melville's tragic view of the world, we discover he, too,

was concerned with the ambiguity and sources of good and. evil. But we must
not make the error of concluding that Melville acquired his philosophy solely
or wholly from Shakespeare. The great dramatist did not give Melville the
bases of his tragic vision of life; instead Melville found in Shakespeare
an aid to the crystallization of his own inner promptings.h0 Melville's
letters to Duyckinck and his review of Hawthorne's Masses show that it was
the "blackness" and the truth-telling of Shakespeare that attracted him,
those "snatches" of ”things. . .so terrifically true" that Melville felt "in
this world of lies“ Shakespeare had sought truth at the very foundations of
existence. '

In addition to the comments about Shakespeare in the letters and review,
Melville's annotations and marldngs in his edition of Shakespeare provide

hints of those ideas that appealed to Melville most.“ Melville was struck,
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when Miranda exclaims in act V, scene i:
O! wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! 0 brave new world,
That has such peOple in't!
Melville scored this passage and boxed Prospero's reply, "'Tis new to thee,"
adding in the margin: "Cmsider the character of the persons concerning whom
Miranda says this—then Prospero's quiet words in comment—how terrible! In
'Timon' itself there is nothing like it." The inseparablmess of good and
evil and the discrepancy between appearance and reality Melville found in
Shakespeare at every turn. He found itin Hamlet, marking the passage in
which Hamlet tells Rosencrantz that "there is nothing either good or bad, but
thinking makes it so," and commenting: ”Here is forcibly shown the great
Montaignism of Hamlet." Melville noted it. in Othello's disillusion:
By the world,
I think my wife be honest and think she is not,

I think that thou art just and think thou art not,
I'll have some proof.

Melville found the strange mixture of good and evil in Shakespeare's
characters both a shocking and truthful revelation. He marked the Duke's
observation in Measure for Measure: ,

0, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!

He knew that evil often put on the appearance of good; thus he underlined
Cordelia's statement in King Lear, "Time shall unfold what plaited cunning
hides." He became deeply absorbed with the nature of evil and its twisted,
ironical ambiguity in King Lear, scoring Edmund's courageous reply to
Albany's challenge:
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That names me traitor, villain-like he lies:
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Melville no doubt saw the irony of the depraved Edmund maintaining his truth
and honor so firmly, but what impressed him most was that such a man should
have the valor lacking so often in the weak goodness of an Albany or a
Starbuck. "The infernal nature," commented Melville, "has a valor often
denied to innocence." He perceived the irony of beloved evil when he heavily
checked Edmund's Wing words: "Yet Edmund was belov'd!" That the selfish
Ednnmd could find consolation in the love of two such evil women as Goneril
and Regan was to Melville a strange mixture of good and evil. A similar
reaction to the curious combination of good and evil caused Melville to

place a question mark beside Edrmmd's promise:

...some good I mean to do,
Despite of mine own nature.

lhen Melville read the horror-filled scene of Gloucester's blinding, he
perceived the double meaning of Shakespeare's words. On the one hand, he
saw the ruthlessness of evil exhibited, but he also discemed the deeper
significance that by losing his eyesight, Gloucester gained insight into
the realities about him. His perception of Shakespeare's insight ledhim
to exclaim "Terrific“I When Regan calls Gloucester, "Ingrateful fox!"
Melville once again was perplexed at Shakespeare's tragic irony and com-
mented: “Here's a touch ShakeSpearean-{Rggafi talks of ingratitude!"

Melville found further "contraries" in the disillusionment of friend-

 

ship. In King Henry VIII Melville doubled—scored Buckingham's speech:

...This from a dying man receive as certain:
Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels
Be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away
Like water from ye, never found again
But where they mean to sink :76.

The theme of insincere friendship confronted Melville everywhere in

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91

of the Fool's song:
Fathers that wear rags
Domake their children blind;
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children Icind.
Fortune, that errant whore,
Ne' er turns the key to the poor.
01‘ he could find it in Hamlet in the lines of the Player King:
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
Melville found it to be the penetrating theme of Timon. He summarized his
feeling for the play by underlining in it the Stranger's intuitive perception
of the hypocrisy of Timon's friends: "my, this is the world's soul."
Melville found in Coriolanus an expression of his ideal friendship. In
that'plafiywhe’heavily’ marked the long passage in which Coriolanus and
Aufidi‘urmeet. Aufidius Speaks passionately:
oesthflt I see thee here
Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold.
Melville in MOE-Dick portrayed a friendship as sincere as this between
Ishmael and Queequeg.

These prolific marginal notes substantiate Melville's comments in his
letters and the Hawthorne review. Melville was most struck by the intuitive
truths ShakeSpeare uttered through the mouths of his ”dark" characters, and
through those of his good characters at their moments of suffering. What
fascinated Melville most were the revelations concerning the inexplicable
union and disunion of good and evil; it was the darkness of ShalceSpeare that
appealed to Melville. In King Lear Melville was more concerned with the
depravity of Goneril, Regan, and Edmund than with the reawakening of values

in Lear, or the principles of Kent, Edgar, or Cordelia.
Perhaps part of the reason for Melville's preoccupation with evil and

92

the ambiguities lies in his reaction against transcendentalism. Melville
had attended a lecture by Emerson in early February, 1&9, a few days before
he began reading Shakespeare in earnest.’42 On March 3 he wrote Duyckinck:
"I was very disappointed in Mr Emerson. I had heard of him as full of
transcendentalism, myths & oracular gibberish." Melville was not impressed
with the idealism of "this Plato who talks thro' his nose."h3 His annotated
cOpy of Enerson's _E_s_s_ays_ shows that Melville reacted negatively to the bland
transcendental opimism that postulated evil as merely the absence of good.
Emerson declared in The Conduct of Life: "The first lesson of history is the
, good of evil.” Melville could only retort: "He still bethi-nks himself of
his optimism—he must make that good somehow against the eternal hell
itself.”h Although Melville's reaction to Emerson and transcendentalism
was not entirely negative, his distrust in Emerson's optimism led him to
criticise trmscendentalism in Moby—Dick, especially in "The Mast-head,"

for its lack of contact with reality.

Are we to conclude that Melville's preoccupation with evil left no room
for a consideration of good? Melville, like Hawthorne, believed that the
source of evil came often from the cultivation of the ego and intellect at the
expense of the heart. Herein, felt,_Melville, lay the great danger of
transcendentalism, which, in emphasising'man's reason and self-reliance,
often ,sjgifled the heart; Melville's reaction to Shakespeare, moody and grim
as it was, nevertheless was not wholly so; had it been he could not have
responded as he did to the friendship of Aufidius and Coriolanus, or to the
humanity and insight Gloucester and Lear found in the midst of their suffer- ,
ing. His reading of Shakespeare likewise Opened the way for Melville's
response to Hawthorne's E2532: Though, once again, he found imaged in

Hawthorne his own predisposition to blaclmess, he also saw Hawthorne's
brighter side. He saw the importance of the heart to the intellect when

93

he described Hawthorne in the essay on the m as a man. who had shed
(using Hawthome's own words) "such a light, as never illuminates the earth
save when a great heart burns as the household fire of a grand intellect."b5
Later Melville, in a letter to Hawthorne in late spring, 1851, wrote:
By the way, in the last "Dollar Magazine" I read "The Unpardonable Sin."
He was a sad fellow, that Ethan Brand....It is a frightful poetical creed
that the cultivation of the brain eats out the heart....I stand for the .
heart. To the dogs with the head! I had rather be a fool with a heart,
than Jupiter Olympus with the headih6

Melville, then, perceived the necessity of the heart and intellect
working together, of brotherhood and friendship, of humanity in people.
Exaltation of intellect leads to pride and vanity, which in turn lead to
alimation from and the loss of feeling for mankind. These beliefs Melville
found restated in Shakespeare and Hawthorne, as he found objectified in them
the positive existence of evil. Thus far Melville could reSpond to
ShakeSpeare's balanced view'of good and evil. The fundamental chialism of
evil mid good in life Melville accepted; because he accepted both this
dualism and the necessity of humane brotherhood, he achieved in Moby—Dick '
what I should call, for want of a better term, a "balance." Here he pitched
his tragedy of Ahab, a tragedy resulting from the separation of intellect
from heart, perception from feeling, soul from humanity.

Yet as Melville responded so intensely to the incongruity of good and
evil in Shakespeare, he paradoxically seems to have also identified himself
with Ahab's attempt to unmask the deep, vast mystery of this incongruity. .
He found this mystery expressed in ShakeSpeare in such "dark" characters as
Iago and Timon; he found it in the passages he marked concerning the faith-
lessness of friends; he found it in the paradoxical good of such depraved
people as Ednmnd; he found it in the startling fact that Edgar could gain

insight only through losing his eyesight. As Melville explored the many
manifestations of this mystery, he was absorbed not only with the impossibility

9h

of separating good and evil, but also with the vastness and illusiveness

of man's soul and of God. He had remarked in Marin; that "God is past finding
out, and mysteries ever open into mysteries beyond." He had learned also in
his youth that though life among the Typees appeared ideal and Fayaway seemed
s symbol of beauty and goodness, beneath the surface of Polynesian life there
lurked the terrible reality of cannibalism and vulturism—and in Moby-Dick

he declared universal vulturism to be one of the fundamental principles of
life. In his determination to probe systematically into these unanswered
problems, in spite of the inner promptings that told him they were "past
finding out," Melville parted company with Shakespeare. In Moby-Dick he
attempted to unmask his times—to unveil an age that proclaimed the importance
of the individual, his unlimited potential, and the mission of America. He
sought that which lay beyond the world of appearances.

We have, consequently, a paradox in Melville's thought which perhaps
will remain forever unresolved. On the one hand is the Melville who, like
Shakespeare, recognised the dualism of life; on the other hand is the
Melville who, like Shakespeare, was appalled at the “contraries” implicit
in this dualism. But Melville's response to this‘last aSpect of the tragic
world was such more pervasive than Shakespeare's; in fact, Melville criti-
cized Shakespeare in the Hawthorne essay for having probed the incongruity
of existence only "covertly and by snatches." Melville was not satisfied
with random probings. He could not accept illusion itself as a fact of
reality. As a result, Melville had to strike through illusion in an attanpt
to find what lay beyond.

This contradiction in Melville's view of the tragic world found its
way into Moby-Dick. But it must not be thought that Melville can be placed

so easily into even this somewhat inconsistent pattern, for Melville's

statement that "Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remains unhinted" is

95

not untrue of its author either. But, at the danger of over—simplification,
there are two passages among the many in Mo_b_y_-Dick, expressing land as a
symbol 'of security and the sea as its opposite, which illustrate the paradox
Suggested above. The first is in ”The Lee Shore“:

But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, in-
definite as God-so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite,
than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For
worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land!

The second passage, in chapter 58, appears to contradict the first:

Consider...the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures
prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile
earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a
strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean
surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular
Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the
half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou
canst never return!

To say which of these ideas represent Melville's true feelings is difficult,

perhaps impossible. In Mobz-Dick these two viewpoints are essentially
exemplified in two worlds: the Ishmael world and the Ahab world. In the

Ishmael world Melville seems to express the necessity of humanity, emphasizing,

—~h.______»———l—-‘

for example, the necessity of brotherhood and interdependence in the friend-
ship between Queequeg and Ishmael. Through this friendship, the isolated
and wandering Ishmael gains humanity. In chapter 72, "The Monkey-Rope," the
rope between Queequeg and Ishmael becomes a symbol of human brotherhood and
the fact of mutual dependence of all mankind. In "A Squeeze of the Hand"
Ishmael proclaims the need of brotherhood and of the proper equilibrium
between the heart and the head:

Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since
by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all
cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attain-
able felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but
in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the
country, now that I have perceived this, I am ready to squeeze case

eternally.

96

However, Ishmael too felt "the irresistible arm drag“ him into Ahab‘s mad
drive after the “gliding demon of the seas of life." Only Ishmael's contact
with humanity saved him in the end.

The Ahab world would seem to illustrate the disastrous results of the
lack of humanity. Ahab's inability to allow the free play of his feelings
accounts largely for his tragedy. The potential good in Ahab is there, but
it is never realized. His morbidity, dominant will, and pride isolate him
from all human ties and blind him to the fact that his quest may not only
destroy himself, but the M—world besides. Even after he finally recog-
nizes these dangers, he relentlessly drives himself and his crew to catas-
trophe. Intellect triumphs over heart, and like Ethan Brand, Ahab commits
the unpardonable sin. "Cultivation of the brain eats out the heart" of
Ahab until "his last, cindered apple” of humanity falls to the soil. The
novel aids in a wholesale annihilation of all save Ishmael, a waste reminis-
cent of Shakespeare. Good and bad alike are destroyed. It is from this
viewpoint that Melville, in identifying himself with the world of Ishmael,
in creating the equilibrium of intellect and heart in Ishmael, established
a. balance between the contending forces of good and evil in the novel.

In the Ahab world Melville revealed evil at work in its many manifestati ons—
the vulturism of Stubb and Flask, the sadism of Flask, the pride, hatred,
and defiance of God in Ahab, and the cowardice of Starbuck. In Ishmael
Melville revealed the forces of good, love, brotherhood, and humanity.
Ishmael smnmarizes the ideal "middle of the road" attitude when he sage,
And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine
intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray.
And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or
denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things
earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes

neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both
with equal eye.

97

Such an identification with Ishmael's world of men may have led Melville
to remark in a letter to Hawthorne: aI have written a wicked book, and feel
spdtless as the lamb."h7 Matthiessen suggests the significance of this
statemsnt when he says:

He thus instinctively transferred the effect of tragedy from the audience
to make it apply to the author as well....when the book was done, when
he had written his vision of Ahab's madness out of his system, he could
feel himelf purged....He had e erienced the meaning of catharsis, even
though his protagonist had not.

Still this does not represent all of Melville's feelings. Although
Melville may have felt himself purged upon completing the novel, there are
hints that he also identified himself with Bulkington's heroic striving for
truth in the vast and terrible sea of life, believing that this was man's
courageous goal in life. It is hard to believe that Melville did not
identify himself at least partially with Ahab's pursuit of the unknowable
mteries. It is equally true perhaps that Ahab echoed Melville's own pro-
test when he said, "That inscrutible thing is chiefly what I hate." In
considering the white whale as a symbol, Melville's absorption with the
shifting values of good and evil becomes clear. In "The Whiteness of the
Ihale,‘ the ambiguous symbolism of Moby-Dick—the duality in the symbolism
of whiteness—is treated in detail. Although whiteness suggests the almost
God-like attributes of beauty, joy, gladness, innocence, justice, purity, and
and power, Melville observes that

there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of his hue,
which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights
in blood. This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of
whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with
any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest
bounds.

If we can judge from Pierre,u9 Melville's purgation of doubt, gained

from writing Mom-Dick, was temporary, for in that novel (which is signifi-
cantly subtitled, "The Ambiguities") Melville, with a deepair and intensity

 

 

98

of Hamlet, searched again into the incongruities of life and destroyed
Pierre, undone by goodness, in a catastrophe which annihilated everything,
good and evil alike. Melville, injecting himself into Pierre's tragedy to
a degree beyond which even ShakeSpeare did not go in m, found himself
in a state of mental and physical exhaustion at the completion of m.
Yet even then Melville did not surrender, and in The Confidence Mango he
explored again the masquerade of life wherein man's goodness consistently
makes'him a dupe.

It was not until late in life, in Billy Bug, that Melville recognized

 

and accepted Shakespeare's dictum tint “Ripeness is all," being content to
take the mystery of life as the parmnmmt fact. He no longer endeavored to
solve Hamlet's problem of the difference between appearance and reality.

He could still write of such contradictions as the inability of a Billy
Budd, all goodness and innocence, to cope with the primal depravity of a
Claggart or with a man-of-war society; but he wrote now with an objectivity
and control that was impossible for him in figs. Matthiessen makes this
point when he says that Captain Vere

in his dying hours was heard to murxm1r the words, "Billy Budd," but not
in "accents of remorse." Melville could now face incongruity; he could
accept the existegie of both good and evil with a calm impossible to

him in Mobz-Dick
Melville accepted illusion as fundamental reality, as Shakespeare did in

The Tempest:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yes, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

99

V

"The Drama'sDone," Ishmael says in the "Epilogue," and in "The Try—
Works" he says, "It is an argmnent for the pit." These words suggest the
impact which "Master William Shakspeare" made upon Melville's tragic vision
and art in revising Moby—Dick—a novel containing, among other things, Ahab,
"a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies,“ and a poetic prose
style distinguished by "a bold and nervous lofty language." "Without the
precipitant of ShakeSpeare,' Matthiessen asserts, "Moby-Dick might have been
a superior Whit:Jack_e_t. With it, Melville entered into another realm, of

 

different prOperties and proportions."52 Melville's verse tribute to
Shakespeare, written in 1865, is a testimony to his perception that he
had intuitively touched the core of the great English dramatist and had
found gold:
No utter surprise can come to him
Who reaches Shakspeare's core;

That which we seek and shun is there-
Man's final lore.53

100

Notes for Chapter 1

 

1. A. 0. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy (London, 1922), p. 330.

2. For discussions of the many and conflicting theories on the function,
purpose, or desired effects of tragedy, see Allardyce Nicoll, The Theog
A of Drama (New York, n.d. ), pp. 119-137, and F. L. Lucas, Tragedy‘in Relation
to Aristotle's "Poetics" (New York, 1928), pp. 23—60. Nicoll discusses the
Hieories of LAristotle,F. L. Lucas, Schopenhauer, Schlegel, Fontenelle,
Shelley, and A. ,0. Bradley, in addition to his own views. His book also
contains a selective bibliography. Lucas considers the theories of Aristotle
in detail, also evaluating the theories of Rousseau, Hume, Abbe Dubos,
Fontenelle, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and I. A. Richards.

3. Herman Melville: Representative Selections, ed. Willard Thorp (New York,
1938), p.3 336—hereafter cited as Thorp. Thorp notes that it was not Chettle
who thus criticized ShakeSpeare, but Robert Greene.

1:. Newton Arvin, Herman Melville (n.p., 1850), p. 161.

S. F. 0. Matthiessen, finerican Renaissance (London, 19111), p. 1115. N.
Bryllion Fagin,in "Herman Melville and the Interior Monologue," AL VI (1935):
1:33-1:31» argues that Melville's soliloquies not only show a Shakespearean
influence, but also anticipate the "interior monologue" as used by James
Joyce and his disciples.

6. Charles Olson, Call Me Ishmael (New York, 191:7), pp. 68—69.

'7. Incidently, as mentioned The chapter 1;, Cassius's defiance of lightning
may have suggested to Melville Ahab's similar defiancein "The Candles."

8. Howard P. Vincent, The Trying—Out of Moby-Dick (Boston, 1919), p. 338.

9. Olson, p. 680

10. Olson, p. 67, Matthiessen, pp. 1:17-1:21.

11. Olson, p. 67; Lawrance Thompson, Melville's Quarrel With God (Princeton,
1952); P0 229.

12. Min, p. 161.

13. Mn, 13. 161.

114. Bradley, p. 21:8.

15. Bradley, pp. 5-23. Hereafter in this section I shall give notations
of direct quotations of Bradley only.

16. Thorp, p. 372.

17. In addition to this conflict, there is another internal conflict
within Ahab arising from the opposition his sense of humanity presents
against his determination to bring vengeance upon the white whale. This
conflict will be considered later in connection with the Ahab-Pip relation.
Starbuck also has an internal conflict between his belief that Ahab's quest
is dangerous and must be stopped and his cowardice.

18. Bradley, p. 20.

19. Leon Howard, in "Melville's Struggle with the Angel," MLQ I (191:0),
202; and in Herman Melvi_l__l__e (Berkeley, 1951), p. 165, notes that this passage
bears a striking resemblance to Coleridge's dictum, in his lecture on Hamlet,
that " one of Shakespeare's modes for creating characters is to conceive any
one intellectual or moral faculty in morbid excess, and then to place him-
self...thus mutilated or diseased, under given circumstances" (Howard's
italics). Howard suggests that Melville may have received the idea for a
"morbid“ Ahab from Coleridge's lecture. He says (p. 202), "It may be that
when Melville wrote his friend a letter of enthusiastic comment on 'the
divine William,‘ Duycldnck directed his attention to Coleridge's interpre-
tations of Shakespeare's art in his Literary Remains." Howard adds (13. 202,
n.) , however, that "mention of the literary Remains does not appear in the
incomplete record of his [Melville's] readings, and his acquaintance with
the volume can be asserted only on the grounds of probability and on the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

101

Notes for Chapter X
evidence of parallels between the lecture on Hamlet and the language of

Hog-Dick."

20. I ve received hints for thediscussion of universality from Nicoll,
PP. 103-1190

2].. Olson, p. 72.

22. Eleanor Melville Metcalf, Herman Melville (Cambridge, Mass” 1953).

P. 1090

23. Matthiessen, p. M8.

25. Olson, pp. 60, 620

26. Olson, p. 51.

2?. Olson, pp. 62-63. Olson seems to imply that Melville's novel, therefore,
is conplete according to Shakespearean standards. However, I cannot see a
relaxation of Ahab's selfishness or hate in the end. His last speech in the
novel shows him selfish and hateful to the finish.

28. Matthiessen, p. 1151. William Ellery Sedgwick, in Herman Melville: The
Tragedy of Mind (Cambridge, Mass., 19%). pp. 133-13h, 1:15an a swimilar _
ju garment. e says, "A character that in many respects can stand canparison
to King Lear, Ahab is not poignant like King Lear....His tragedy inspires
terror as does no work in the language outside Shakespeare. But it fails to
21118131136 pity."

29. Matthiessen, p. 1456.

30. Nicoll, pp. 119-123; Lucas, pp. 23—28. In American Renaissance pp.
179-180, 350, Matthiessen presents his theory of . most ter-
esting aspect of his theory is his transference of the effect of Aristotle's
catharsis from the audience to the protagonist of the plan“. li'ragedy, says
Matthiessen, must contain a moral recognition scene wherein the hero becomes
“aware of the ineznrlble course of action and his implication in it" (p.
350). Moreover, for the recognition scene to be adequate there must be a
purgation within the hero which transfigures him and moves him towards
regeneration. “What I mean by purgatorial movement,“ Matthiessen stresses,
'can'be observed most fully in Lear's purification through suffering' (p.
350). Although he admits that he "would not presume that such a formula
would fit all tragedies," he nevertheless uses it to judge Ahab's tragedy.
He further implies during his judgment of Mo%—Dick as a tragedy that this
formula is Shakespearean (p. 1.58). I feel a reqtdrement—that the hero
must experience a gathers” or purification-13 unwarranted, not because
Ahab's tragedy does not fit it, but because even some of Shakespeare's plays
do not have a purification or regeneration of the hero. Brutus is not
purified. In fact his nobility, integrity, honesty, and courage are in a
sense "pure" qualities to begin with. Nor is Macbeth purified or purged;
he does not alter his ways or action even though he recognizes what he has
done. Macbeth is in reality a tragedy depicting the degeneration of a hero.
Matthiessen seems to interpret catharsis as meaning purification. For the
theory that catharsis does not mean purification, see Lucas, pp. 25-27;
Nicoll, pp. i22-fi3e

31. Matthiessen, p. 1:58.

32. This fact is more important than it may seem. If Ahab had given himself
over completely to humanity and altered his course of action, there would have
been no catastrophe in Moby—Dick, especially in light of the passive role
of Moby-Dick, and therefore no tragedy, even in the barest sense of the word.
From this viewpoint, then, it may be unjust to criticise Melville for not
making his novel a "comedy." -

 

102

Notes for Chapter V

 

33. During the first part of my discussion of ShakeSpeare's tragic vision,
I have made extensive use of Bradley, pp. 23-39.

31;. Bradley, p. 23, notes that "the pity and fear which are‘stirred by the
tragic story seem to unite with,and even to merge in, a profound sense of
sadness and mystery, which is due to this impression of waste." Still the
greatness of the hero, the feeling that here is someone who has found life
worthwhile, Bradley eXplains, "makes us realise so vividly the worth of
that which is wasted that we cannot possibly seek comfort in the reflection
that all is vanity. " Bradley apparently would not agree with SchOpenhauer
that the main impression of tragedy is the "vanity of vanities." (Lucas,
pp. 145-118, and Nicoll, pp. 133-131;, give swnmaries of Schopenhauer's theory
of tragedy.)

35. For Bradley's discussion of fate as the guiding force in the universe,
see pp. 26-31. For his discussion of a just and benevolent moral order as
the power, see pp. 26, 31-33. Bradley, p. 26, elqllains: "These accounts
isolate and exaggerate single aspects. '. .either the close and unbroken con-
nection of character, will, deed and catastrOphe, which, taken alone, shows
the individual simply as sinning against, or failing to conform to, the moral
order and drawing his just doom on his own head; or else that pressure of
outward forces, that sway of accident, and those blind and agonised struggles,
which, taken alone, show him as the mere victim of some power which cares
neither for his sins nor for his pain. Such views contradict one another,
and no third view can unite them; but...they...are both present in the fact,
and a view which would be true to the fact and to the whole of our imagine»-
tive experience must in some way combine these aspects.“ Bradley attenpts
to combine them by suggesting that Shakespeare presents an universe controlled
by a power which, though producing both good and evil, is violently opposed
to evil. Since the power without exception destroys the evil it has pro-
duced, it is in a sense as ruthless as fate. Because the hero with his
tragic flaw opposes the principle of good in the "ultimate power," he is
therefore justly destroyed. Yet the profound mystery of this order, Bradley
observes, is that it produces the evil it must destroy and that in the
process of annihilating its evil, it mutilates also much of its good.

36. Brafley, p. 33, explains that what he means by a "moral" order is
"that it does not show itself. indifferent to good and evil, or equally
favourable or unfavourable to both, but shows itself akin to good and alien
from evil.” The main source of suffering and death in ShakeSpeare's
tragedies, Bradley notes, is never good; it is always evil. This evil
originates from characters around the hero-as in Othello King Lear, and
Hamlet—or from within the hero—as in Macbeth. Even ~ the relatively
Recent hero, his imperfection or defect, though not evil in itself, often
.. results in evil or harmful deeds which make important contributions to the
conflict and catastrophe. Because this evil, destructive and wasteful, tends
to annihilate not only good, but itself as well, the inference is, Bradley
suggests, that the "moral" order is alien to evil and tends to relentlessly
deatroy it. ‘

37. Bradley, pp. 36-37, observes that "the evil against which it [‘ the
moral order] asserts itself, and the persons whom this evil inhabits, are
not really something outside the order, so that they can attack it or fail
to conform to it; they are within it and a part of it. It itself produces
them,-produces Iago as well as Desdemona, Iago's cruelty as well as Iago's
courage. It is not poisoned, it poisons itself. Doubtless it shows by its
violent reaction that the poison is poison, and that its health lies in

103

Notes for Chapterl

 

good. But one significant fact cannot remove another, and the spectacle we
witness scarcely warrants the assertion that the order is responsible for
the good in Desdemona, but Iago for the evil in Iago."

38. Bradley, pp. 37-39. Bradley, p. 38, says: “That this idea, though
very different from the idea of a blank fate, is no solution of the riddle
of life is obvious; but why should we eacpect it to be such a solution?
Shakespeare was not attempting to justify the ways of God to men, or to
show the universe as a Divine Comedy. He was writing tragedy, and tragedy
would not be tragedy if it were not a painful mystery."

39. It is difficult to ascertain the degree towhich Shakespeare injected
his personal beliefs and feelings into his plays, yet the problem has a
direct bearing upon his artistic cmtrol. At times, he probably pessimisti-
ca‘Lly felt the powers of evil and the helplessness of man Wendlelming; but
it is unlikely that he reached a conviction of complete pessimism, for
there is every indication in his plays that he conceived man to be a noble,
heroic creature who could find values in life. If not, we should have no
Le__ar_. Undoubtedly during the period of the tragedies, Shakespeare was not
a happy man; he probably felt contempt, bitterness, melancholy, and despair.
Nevertheless his personal broodings did not, except in Timon, become so
intense that he lost the self-control or objectivity of an artist.

ho. See chapter 2 for discussion of this point.

111. I an particularly indebted to Matthiessen, Olson, and Leyda for these
marked and annotated passages as well as for aids in interpreting the
significance of them.

142. Jay Leyda, The MelvilleLo Jg(New York, 1951), I, 287.

’43. Tharp, pp. 37i-3720

hh. Matthiessen, p. 185.

hSO T110113, p. 314140

’46. Hetealf, p. 109.

117. Metcalf, p. 129. Olson, pp. 52-58, discusses the significance of the
following notes which Melville jetted down on the back fly-leaf of the last
volume of his Shakespeare edition:

Ego non baptizo te in nomine Patris et

Filii et Spiritus Sancti--sed in nomine

Diaboli.-—Madness is undefinable—

It & right reason extremes of one,

--not the (black art) Goetic but Theurgic magic-—

seeks converse with the Intelligence, Power, the

Angel.
It is Olson's contention that these notes are rough notes for Mob -Dick.
Ideas present in these jottings are discernable in Mobz-Dick, But that
they represent the key to the theme of Ahab's tragedy seems to be an
over-simplification. The tragedy of Ahab is too complex to be reduced to
such a concise pattern. However, when Melville spoke of having written a
wicked book, and when he wrote Hawthome, "Tris is the book's motto (the
secret one), E 0 non baptiso te in nomine—but make out the rest for
yourself“ (Metcalf, p. 111),“11e may have at least temporarily felt that
these notes represented an important aspect of his novel. For another
discussion of these notes, see Thompson, pp. 137-138, 1136. For refutations
of Olson's theory see Matthiessen, pp. 1157-1158, 11. 6, and Moby—Dick or The
Whale, eds. Luther S. Mansfield and Howard P. Vincent (New York, 1952),

113-61114.

 

 

1011

Notes f or Chapterl

 

118. Matthiessen, pp. 1157-168.

’49. Several critics have noted the influence of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet
upon Pierre: Matthiessen, pp. [167-1187 passim (the i’rfi‘luence ofiamleJ);
Pierre or The Ambiggities, ed. Henry A Murray (New York, l9h9),." Introduction,"
passim (the influence of T_I________am1et and Romeo and Juliet); E. leggy, "ShakeSpeare
and Melville's Pierre * BP__1Q, VI (191117. h3-5’1thnch argues that the in-
fluence of Romeo an Juliet 18 more significant than Hamlet); Sedgwick,
pp. 163-172? assim (the imuence of Hamlet).

50. The 00%1' dence Mpg, incidently, provides another piece of evidence
that Melville was primarily attracted to the mystery and ambiguity of
Shakespeare's tragedies. Frank Goodman observes: "This Shakespeare is a
queer man. At times irresponsible, he does not always seem reliable. There
appears to be a certain—what shall I call it?—hidden sun, say, about him,
at once enlightening and mystifying." In another passage Melville discusses
what is meant by an "original" character in literature, holding that only
three—Hilton's Satan, Don Quixote, and Hamlet—are really true original
characters. The original character, Melville observes, is “like a revolving
lh'unnnond light, rmng away from itself all round it—-everything is lit by
'it, everything starts up to it (mark how it is with Hamlet). " He further
mks that "for much the same reason that there is but one planet to one
orbit, so can there be but one such original character to one work of
invention." These comments not only suggest Melville's concepticn of Ahab,
but also ShakeSpeare's influence on that conception. The influence of
Shakespeare on The Confidence Man has been noted by Elizabeth 3. Foster,
in The Confidence Man: His Masquerade (New York, 1951;), pp. xv-xvi.

Hows—Ed, pp. 227, 230—2551, 277, discusses ShakeSpeare's influence upon The
Confidence Man. Arthur L. Vogelback, in"Shake3peare and Melville's
B's-Etc Cereno " MLN, LXVII (1952), 113-116, compares Babo, the Negro
mutineer, with Smespeare's Iago.

51. Matthiessm, p. 512.

520 Hatthiessm,

53¢ Laird“: II: 67Lh16

 

 

 

 

 

 

105

BIBLIWRAPHY OF WORKS CONSULTED
Arvin, Newton. Herman: Melvillg. n.p., 1950.

Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, Mikag
Macbeth. London, 1922.

Davis, Merrel R. Melville's Mardi: A Chartless prage. New Haven, 1952.

Fagin, N. Bryllion. "Herman Melville and the Interior Monologue," American
Literature, VI (January 1935 1, 1133-1014.

Freeman, John. Hgman Melville. English Men of Letters series. London, 1926.

 

Geist, Stanley. Herman Melville: The Tragic Vision and The Heroic Ideal.
Cmbridge, M8880, T§3 e

Hayford, Harrison. ”Two New Letters of Heman Melville," ELH, XI (March 191411),
76-83.

Howard, Leon. Herman Melville: A Biogaphy. Berkeley, 1951.

 

. "Melville's Struggle with the Angel," Modern Language Quarterly,
I (June 19140), 195-206.

Hughes, Raymond G. "Melville and Shakespeare ," Shakespeare Association
Bulletin, VII (July 1932), 103-112.

Jerman, Bernard R. “With Real Admiration' : More Corre8pondence between
Melville and Bentley," American Literature, xxv (1953—1951;), 307—313.

Leyda, Jay. The Melville Lo : A Docmnentary Life of Herman Mglville, 1819-
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Lucas, F. L. Tragedy in Relation to Aristotlejg "Poetics" . New York, 1928.

Mansfield, Tumor S. Heman Melville: Author and New Yorker. Unpublished
Dissertation. University of Chicago, 1935.

Matthiessen, F. 0. American Renaissance. London, 19111.

Melville, Herman. The Confidence Mani His Masquerade, ed. Elizabeth S. Foster.
New York, 19%.

 

. Herman Melville: Representative Seleptionp, ed. Willard Thorp.
American WritersTeries. New York, 1938.

 

. Moby-Dick or The Whale, eds. Luther S. Mansfield and Howard P.
Vincent. New York, 1922.

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. Selected Tales and Poems J ed. Richard Chase. New York, 1950.

 

106

Metcalf, Eleanor Melville. Herman Melville: Cycle and Dgicycle. Cambridge,
M3530, 1953.

Word, Lewis. Herman Melyille. New York, 1929.

Nicoll, Allarcb’ce. The Theory of Drama. New York, n.d.

Olson, Charles. Call Me Ishmael. New York, 191:7.

. "leer and Moby—Dick,‘ Twice a Year, I (Fall-Winter 1938), 165-189.

 

Palmer, Henry F. Hilton and Melville. Pittsburgh, 1950.

Sealts, Merton 11., Jr. Melville's Reading: A Check-List of Books Owned and
Borrowed. Offprinted from Harvard Library BulleFln, II, III, IV (1953:
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Sedgnick, William Ellery. Herman Melville: The Tragedy of Mind. Cambridge,
M3330, 19,4140

Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of Shakesgeare, ed. Hardin Craig.
New York, 1951.

. The Dramatic Works of William Shakes eare With a Life of the
Poet, and-Notes, Original and Selected.... Boston, 1837.
Stewart, George R. ”The Tm Moby-Dicks," American Literature, XXV, (1953-
19514): h17-hh3.

Stone, Geoffrey. Melville. New York, 19h9.

 

 

 

Thompson, Lawrence. Melville's Quarrel With God. Princeton, 1952.
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Weaver, R. M. Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic. New York, 1921.
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