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Tema 53:
La novela, el cuento 
y la poesía en 
Estados Unidos: H. 
Melville, E.A. Poe y 
W. Whitman.  
 Topic 53:
La no
ovela, el cuento y la poesía en E
Estados Unidos:: H. Melville, E.A
A. Poe y W. Whitman.
2

Topic 53::
L novela, el cuento y la poesía en Esstados Unidos: H. Melville
La e, E.A. Poe y W. Whitman
n.

Tab
ble of conte
ents

1. Heerman Melv
lville (1819 – 1891) ____________
______________________________
___ 3
1.11. The authoor and his tiimes. _________________
________________________________
____ 3
1.22. Moby Dicck. _____________________________
________________________________
____ 5
1.2.1. The ploot. _________________________________
____________________________________
_____ 6
1.2.2. The maajor characters ______________________
____________________________________
_____ 8
1.2.3. Main thhemes. _____________________________
____________________________________
____ 12
2. Eddgar Allan Poe
P (1809-1849) ______________
______________________________
__ 15
2.11. Poe’s poettry. ____________________________
________________________________
___ 18
2.22. Poe’s Talees. _____________________________
________________________________
___ 19
2.2.1. Comic tales ______________________________ ____________________________________
____ 19
2.2.2. Tales of
o horror.________________________________________________________________
____ 19
2.2.3. Tales of
o Ratiocinatioon. _____________________
____________________________________
____ 20
3. Walt
W Whitmaan (1819-18892) ________________
______________________________
__ 21
3.11. Transcend
dentalism. ___________
_ ___________
________________________________
___ 22
3.22. The authoor. _____________________________
________________________________
___ 23
Bibliiography_____________
____________________
______________________________
__ 24
Poe’’s poems _____________
____________________
______________________________
__ 25
Th
he Raven ___________________________________
________________________________
___ 25
Too Helen ____________________________________
________________________________
___ 27
Brieff summary __________
_ ____________________
______________________________
__ 28

Iván Matellaness’ Notes

 Topic 53:
La novela, el cuento y la poesía en Estados Unidos: H. Melville, E.A. Poe y W. Whitman.
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1. Herman Melville (1819 – 1891)

1.1. The author and his times.
On a January morning in 1841, a 21-year-old man stood on the docks of
the New Bedford, Massachusetts, harbour. Poverty had forced him to
abandon his schooling to help support his family, but he had not found
happiness as a farmer, schoolteacher, or bank clerk. Two years before, he
had shipped out as a sailor on a merchant ship, and that job hadn't pleased
him any better than the others. Still, something about the sea must have
called him back, for here he was about to board another ship, the
WHALER ACUSHNET. It was a voyage that would change the young man's life,
and change American literature as well.
MELVILLE was born into a well-off religious New York family whose sons
by rights should have found careers in business or in law offices rather than
aboard ships. But Melville's comfortable childhood ended too soon. When
he was ten his father's import business failed, and that failure drove his
father to madness and eventually to death. The Melvilles sank into genteel
poverty, dependent on money doled out by richer relatives and on the earnings
of Herman and his brothers. These were the pressures that helped drive
Melville, like Moby Dick's narrator, ISHMAEL, to sea. The history of Melville's
time at sea reads very much like an autobiographical adventure story.
MELVILLE was now twenty-five and except for letters published in a local
newspaper, he had shown few signs of a gift for writing. As he recounted his
adventures for his family, however, they urged him to write the tales
down. In this way, it is said, he discovered his calling.
MELVILLE's account of his time in the Marquesas, the novel TYPEE,
was published in the spring of 1846. Advertisements promised readers personal
adventure and cannibal banquets. The book was a great popular success.
Today, Melville probably would have won a place on best-seller lists and an
article in People magazine as the man who lived with the cannibals.
Melville continued to draw on his sea adventures in the novels OMOO (1847),
REDBURN (1849), and WHITE-JACKET (1850). Another novel, MARDI, published

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

 Topic 53:
La novela, el cuento y la poesía en Estados Unidos: H. Melville, E.A. Poe y W. Whitman.
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in 1849, was an unsuccessful attempt to add fantasy and philosophy to sea

stories.
MOBY-DICK is the result of both MELVILLE's ambitions and his
doubts. When he began the book, he intended to call it THE WHALE and
promised his publishers that it would be another popular sea adventure. But
midway through his writing something changed. MELVILLE had moved to
the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts and met NATHANIEL
HAWTHORNE, already famous as the author of The SCARLET LETTER. In
HAWTHORNE, MELVILLE seemed to find a kindred spirit, a man who had
fulfilled himself writing the kind of dark, complex books that Melville
wanted to write. Perhaps the older author's example gave Melville the
courage to achieve his ambitions. Whatever the reason, soon after he met
HAWTHORNE, MELVILLE began furiously to rewrite The Whale. The finished
product reached his publisher a full year after it had been promised; it bore a
new title, MOBY-DICK, and it was a far greater book than anything Melville had
written before.
You can see the influence of many other works of literature in Moby-Dick
(the Bible, Shakespeare, Homer's Odyssey …), but perhaps the book's real
power comes from the doubts and fears of Melville's own life. Though
not as literally autobiographical as TYPEE or OMOO, in many ways MOBY-DICK
more truly reflects its author. While other popular American writers saluted
the nation's free-enterprise system, MELVILLE had seen how cut-throat
competition could destroy men like his father. And so in the memorable
sermon of FLEECE, the cook, men are compared to savage sharks. While
other writers promoted the ideal of the self-sufficient, strong-willed
American hero, MELVILLE saw how easily those qualities might make a
man a dictator. And so he shows us, in CAPTAIN AHAB, how strong will and
independence become madness. And while other writers imagined a
benign God smiling down upon mankind, MELVILLE saw the universe as
at best indifferent, at worst cruel. Moby-Dick is a book crowded with
doubts and short on reassurance, the fitting product of a man who, in

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

 Topic 53:
La novela, el cuento y la poesía en Estados Unidos: H. Melville, E.A. Poe y W. Whitman.
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Hawthorne's words, could neither believe in anything "nor be comfortable in his

disbelief."
MOBY-DICK is the greatest work of Melville's career and one of the
finest- perhaps "the" finest- works of American literature. Tradition has it that
this masterpiece was unjustly attacked by critics and readers of its day.
In fact, many reviews were favourable, and sales were respectable, though
nowhere near the level of TYPEE. But MOBY-DICK did not sell well enough
for MELVILLE to support his wife and children, and he came under increasing
financial pressure. Though his wife's family was wealthy, Melville hated
taking money from richer relatives, as his widowed mother had been forced to
do.
Melville's next novel, PIERRE (1852) (his only novel set on land, not
water) was a failure. Some critics openly doubted his sanity in writing it. None
of the books that followed- ISRAEL POTTER (1855), THE PIAZZA TALES (1856)
and THE CONFIDENCE-MAN (1857) (though valued highly today, achieved
anything like the success of his first efforts.) Disappointed in his hopes of
finding financial security through his work, MELVILLE seemed to be
near a nervous breakdown. He tried to make a living as a public speaker but
failed. Finally, in 1866, he did what his family had long been urging him to do-
he took his first steady job, a secure government post as the Deputy
Inspector of Customs of the Port of New York.
MELVILLE held the post until retirement, sinking into near total obscurity. In
the last years of his life, Melville wrote the novel BILLY BUDD, a gripping tale of
good and evil aboard ship, that today is ranked second only to MOBY-DICK
among his works. Melville died in 1891.

1.2. Moby Dick.

Moby Dick is the story of the voyage of the whaling ship PEQUOD.
The novel draws at least partially from the experiences of its author while a
sailor and a harpooner on whaling ships before settling in New England as a
writer.

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

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La novela, el cuento y la poesía en Estados Unidos: H. Melville, E.A. Poe y W. Whitman.
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The title character of Moby Dick was inspired by an article in a magazine

(1839) in which he author detailed the capture of a giant sperm whale
legendary among whalers for its vicious attacks on ships.
The first publication of MOBY DICK was in London in October of 1851.
Entitled The Whale, the novel was published in three volumes and was
censored for some of its political and moral content. The British
publisher of the novel, Richard Bentley, inadvertently left out the Epilogue to
the novel, leading many critics to wonder how the tale could be told in the first
person by Ishmael, when the final chapter witnesses the sinking of the PEQUOD
with presumably no survivors.

1.2.1. The plot.

"Call me Ishmael." With these words the narrator of Moby-Dick begins
the tale of how, some years before, he abandoned his stale life in
Manhattan for the excitement of a whaling ship.
It's a cold December night when ISHMAEL arrives in the whaling port of
New Bedford. He takes a room at an inn where he must share a bed with a
Polynesian harpooner QUEEQUEG (a frightening figure with tattoos and a
reputation as a cannibal, but, Ishmael soon learns, a man of great dignity and
good nature.)
Ishmael and Queequeg decide to sail together to find a suitable ship. At
the Nantucket wharf, Ishmael sees the PEQUOD, small, weather-beaten and
wildly decorated with whalebones. Her Quaker owners, PELEG and BILDAD, agree
to let the inexperienced Ishmael sign on (for low wages) then tell him
that the PEQUOD's captain, AHAB, has lost his leg to an enormous white
whale. For that reason Ahab can be unstable and severe, though he is still a
skilled commander.
The PEQUOD leaves port on an icy Christmas Day. ISHMAEL soon gets to
know the ship's mates: Cautious STARBUCK, easy-going STUBB, hot-tempered
FLASK, but Captain Ahab remains isolated in his cabin. When at last Ahab
appears, his ivory leg and the white scar blazing down his face and neck make
him look to ISHMAEL like a man who was burned at the stake and survived.
Something is disturbing AHAB deeply, and in a dramatic scene on the

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

 Topic 53:
La novela, el cuento y la poesía en Estados Unidos: H. Melville, E.A. Poe y W. Whitman.
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quarterdeck, the captain gathers the crew and discloses the true
purpose of the voyage: the destruction of MOBY-DICK, the enormous
white sperm whale that cost him his leg.
As fond of knowledge as Ahab is of power, ISHMAEL acquires stories
about MOBY-DICK to add to the already enormous amount of information he has
gathered about whales and whaling. Moby-Dick's intelligence, and his apparent
pleasure in harming people make him the most feared of his kind, but what
most terrifies Ishmael is the whale's empty, deathly whiteness.
The Pequod sails round the stormy Cape of Good Hope into the Indian
Ocean. To Ishmael the voyage seems as varied and unpredictable as life itself.
He is appalled by the brutality of whaling, and amused by its humour. He is
frightened at life's dangers, and awed by its beauties. At moments he feels very
close to the crew. AHAB, however, has cut himself off from almost all such
human feelings. Gams (visits with other whaling ships) are a friendly
tradition at sea, but AHAB uses them only to seek information about MOBY-
DICK. That information becomes more and more gloomy, as many captains have
came across Movy Dick and always have lost something.
As the Pequod sails into the Pacific, AHAB's obsession grows. He sees
the entire universe as an enemy that must be battled before it destroys him.
There is heroism in his acts, but there is also madness, and he frightens
Starbuck so much that the first mate slips into the captain's cabin
contemplating, then rejecting, the idea of murder. It's clear to everyone on the
Pequod that each day is bring them closer to Ahab's goal.
They meet the sadly misnamed Delight, which just lost five men to the
whale. That night Ahab sniffs the air, sensing the enemy is near, and in the
morning he's lifted to the tallest mast of the ship to see a round, white hump in
the ocean: Moby-Dick. The chase begins.
On the first day the great whale breaks Ahab's boat in two. On the
second day the whale's tail smash three whaleboats. As the rescued
whalers regroup on the PEQUOD they notice that AHAB's harpooner, FEDALLAH, is
missing. Yet when Starbuck pleads for him to stop the chase, Ahab answers
that he was fated to fight Moby-Dick.

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

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La novela, el cuento y la poesía en Estados Unidos: H. Melville, E.A. Poe y W. Whitman.
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The third day dawns fine and fair. Again three boats are lowered. As
Moby-Dick rises, AHAB sees FEDALLAH's body lashed to the whale. The whale's
churning tail smashes Stubb's and Flask's boats so they must return to the
Pequod, it sends one man in Ahab's boat overboard. Still Ahab moves toward
the whale. But MOBY-DICK turns away. And as the men on the Pequod watch in
horror, the whale swims mightily toward them, crashing its massive head
against the bow. The ship is ripped open, and the sea rushes in. FLASK,
STUBB, and STARBUCK shout helplessly as they are pulled into the water.
Deprived even of a captain's privilege of going down with his ship,
AHAB throws a last harpoon at Moby-Dick. In fulfillment of Fedallah's
prophecy, the line wraps round Ahab's neck and pulls him from his whaleboat
into the sea.
The sinking PEQUOD becomes the centre of a current that pulls
every board, oar, and man into the depths with Ahab. Only Ishmael, the
narrator, survives by clinging to a tomb made for (but never used by) his friend
Queequeg. For two days Ishmael floats, lost, in the ocean, until he is rescued
by the Rachel. And so he survives to tell his tale.

1.2.2. The major characters

A number of MOBY-DICK's characters are flat, one-dimensional:
FEDALLAH sometimes seems to have come not from a realistic sea
adventure but from a horror story; STARBUCK, STUBB, and FLASK are more
representatives of three different philosophies of life than living human
beings with all the complexities human beings possess. Even AHAB, though
complex, is exaggerated, hardly a man you might meet walking down
the street.
- AHAB: When Moby-Dick begins, AHAB has been whaling for nearly 40 years.
Whaling has become his entire life. Not long before the book opens,
Ahab had returned from a voyage on which he suffered a terrible injury: The
great whale, Moby-Dick, had sliced off his leg. This injury brings on the
fierce desire for revenge that underlies MOBY-DICK's basic plot. To
AHAB, the loss of his leg is not just a single crime against him, but
stands for all the evils sent down upon mankind by a cruel God.

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

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Ahab is a complex figure. One part of his character is symbolized

by his name: AHAB was a evil king of Israel punished for his
disobedience. Throughout the book AHAB disobeys the rules of religion, of
business, of common sense; he ignores omens, pleas, experience. And like
the biblical AHAB, he is punished.
Yet there is a happier side to AHAB as well. As PELEG says, AHAB has
his humanities. In the chapter The Symphony you will see that even when
caught up by his obsession, AHAB can be moved, though briefly, by
the world's beauty. Even more importantly, AHAB is moved by the
innocence and madness of PIP, the ship-keeper abandoned on the ocean,
recognizing in the boy the love and humility that Ahab refuses to permit in
himself. For it is part of AHAB's tragedy that he knows better than
anyone else what his obsession is costing him. At times he revels in
his bitterness and hatred, claiming sorrow more noble than joy. But he's
always aware of simple contentments- his pipe, a sunlit ocean- that he can
seldom enjoy.
His self-awareness, along with his intelligence and will-power,
makes Ahab in many ways a genuine tragic hero. Indeed, MELVILLE
links him directly to Greek heroes like PROMETHEUS and PERSEUS, and
indirectly to Shakespearean heroes like KING LEAR and MACBETH. There is
something noble in Ahab's proud defiance, something about it that most of
us can sympathize with. What human being doesn't want to fight
back against a universe that causes pain? And who doesn't want to
be in control of his or her fate? There is some Ahab in all of us, isn't
there? And so, as the PEQUOD is sinking and AHAB faces death.
- ISHMAEL: You don't really learn much about the everyday life of ISHMAEL,
the man who tells the story of MOBY-DICK. Apparently he's young, but
you don't find out his exact age. He was a schoolteacher once. He
served aboard a merchant ship, but has no whaling experience
before signing on with the PEQUOD. But you learn a lot about Ishmael's mind
and soul, and it is filtered through them that you hear the story of the
PEQUOD's search for the great whale.

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

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La novela, el cuento y la poesía en Estados Unidos: H. Melville, E.A. Poe y W. Whitman.
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His name tells you something important about ISHMAEL. In the

Bible ISHMAEL was an outcast with every man's hand against him. And at
the start of MOBY-DICK Ishmael does seem alone, going to sea to escape
the depressions that have overwhelmed him.
Once ISHMAEL boards the PEQUOD, other facets of his personality
become evident. One is a love for the dreamy philosophizing he
practices at the masthead. ISHMAEL is aware of the dangers of such
dreaming, yet is incapable of not indulging and it is his desire to give
meaning to an ocean or a whale that lends Moby-Dick much of its power.
Closely linked to Ishmael's love of philosophizing is his love of
knowledge for its own sake. AHAB wants to control the universe;
ISHMAEL wants to know all about it. Whereas for AHAB whales
represent all that is hateful, for ISHMAEL they stand for all that is
mysterious. Ishmael's extended essays on whales and whaling are in part
attempts to make sense of a confusing world.
- MOBY-DICK: In some ways the most important figure in MOBY-DICK isn't
a human character at all but the powerful whale for whom the book is
named. How you interpret the novel depends greatly on how you interpret
this whale.
MOBY-DICK is a white, wrinkled sperm whale, the largest, most valuable,
and most feared of all creatures of the sea. Fairly or not, he's been
blamed for whaling disasters around the world. Beyond those facts,
many of you, like the men aboard the PEQUOD, will see MOBY-DICK differently.
To AHAB, who lost a leg to the whale, he's an evil part of an evil
universe. To STARBUCK, who maintains faith in a world ruled by a just God,
MOBY-DICK is simply a dumb animal who injured AHAB out of
instinct. To ISHMAEL, whales represent the unknown, and Moby-Dick is
the greatest mystery of all, his whiteness suggesting that beneath the
colourful surfaces of the universe lays emptiness and chaos.
Melville's varied descriptions of the whale won't make it easy for you to
understand the animal. At times he seems beautiful, like "a snow hill in
the air." At other times, with his gaping mouth crowded with teeth, he

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seems utterly evil. Perhaps MELVILLE is suggesting that MOBY-DICK lies

beyond our judgment, beyond our notions of good and evil.
- QUEEQUEG: The harpooner, QUEEQUEG, wants to see the world from a
whaling ship, specifically to learn about Christianity (which he soon
decides is sadly corrupt). At the Spouter-Inn, Ishmael at first is terrified at
sharing a bed with this tattooed savage, but he soon sees that even though
QUEEQUEG shaves with a harpoon and worships a small pagan idol, he is
more noble than most of ISHMAEL's Christian friends.
- STARBUCK: STARBUCK, the 30-year-old chief mate, is sober, patient,
cautious, religious. Throughout the book he speaks out against
Captain AHAB's madness. His practical side makes him understand that
the ship's true job is to make a profit for owners and crew. Despite
his strengths, Starbuck is helpless in face of the captain. Indeed, Starbuck's
very morality prevents him from avoiding death (though he clearly sees that
Ahab is leading the Pequod's crew to certain disaster, he is unable to
murder the captain.)
- STUBB: The second mate, STUBB, contrasts sharply with STARBUCK. Good-
humoured and easy-going, he tries to see everything in a
favourable light. He's capable of cleverness and practical jokes. Stubb's
good humour, however, can be mixed with cruelty and bullying.
- FEDALLAH: FEDALLAH, AHAB's harpooner, was hidden with his crew for
weeks in the PEQUOD's hold. His turbaned figure seems to represent
the dark side of AHAB's character, though the crew can't determine
whether he controls Ahab or Ahab controls him. It is FEDALLAH who
prophesies the conditions for Ahab's death: that AHAB will see two
hearses on the water, one not made by man, the other made of American-
grown wood; that AHAB will see Fedallah dead first; and that hemp
alone will be the instrument of AHAB's death.

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

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1.2.3. Main themes.

AHAB as a Blasphemous Figure: A major assumption that runs
through MOBY DICK is that AHAB's quest against the great whale is a
blasphemous activity, even apart from the consequences that it has upon its
crew. This blasphemy takes two major forms: the first type of blasphemy to
prevail within Ahab is hubris, the idea that AHAB thinks himself the equal of
God. The second type of blasphemy is a rejection of God altogether for an
alliance with the devil. Melville makes this point explicit during various
episodes of the novel, such as the instance in which Gabriel warns Ahab to
"think of the blasphemer's end" (Chapter 71: The Jeroboam's Story) and the
appraisal of AHAB from PELEG in which he designates him as an ungodly man
(Chapter 16: The Ship).
The idea that AHAB's quest for MOBY DICK is an act of defiance
toward God assuming that AHAB is omnipotent first occurs before AHAB is even
introduced during Father MAPPLE's sermon. The lesson of the sermon, which
concerns the story of Jonah and the whale, is to warn against the
blasphemous idea that a ship can carry a man into regions where God
does not reign. AHAB parallels this idea when he compares himself to God
as the lord over the PEQUOD (Chapter 109: Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin).
MELVILLE furthers this idea through the prophetic dream that FEDALLAH tells AHAB
that causes AHAB to conclude that he is immortal.
Nevertheless, a more disturbing type of blasphemy also emerges during
the course of the novel in which Ahab does not merely believe himself
omnipotent, but aligns himself with the devil during his quest. AHAB
remains in collaboration with FEDALLAH, a character rumored by Stubb
to be the devil himself, and when AHAB receives his harpoon he asks that it
be baptized in the name of the devil, not in the name of the father.

The Whale as an Indefinable Figure: While MELVILLE uses the whale

as a symbol of excellence, he also resists any literal interpretation of that
excellence by refusing to equate the species with any concrete object or idea.
For MELVILLE, the whale is an indefinite figure, as best shown in "The

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

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Whiteness of the Whale" (Chapter 42). MELVILLE defines the whiteness as

absence of colour and thus finds the whale as having an absence of
meaning. MELVILLE reinforces this premise that the whale cannot be defined
through the various stories that ISHMAEL tells in which scholars, historians and
artists misinterpret the whale in their respective fields. Indeed, the extended
discussion of the various aspects of the whale also serve this purpose; by
detailing the various aspects of the whale in their many forms,
MELVILLE makes the whale an even more inscrutable figure whose
essence cannot be described through its history or physiognomy.
The recurring failed attempts to find a concrete definition of the whale
leave the Sperm Whale, and Moby Dick more specifically, as abstract and
emptied of any concrete meaning. By allowing the whale to exist as a
mysterious figure, MELVILLE does not pin the whale down as an easy
metaphorical parallel, but instead leaves a multiplicity of various
interpretations for MOBY DICK.

Moby Dick as a Part of Ahab: Throughout the novel, MELVILLE

creates a relationship between AHAB and MOBY DICK despite the latter's
absence until the final three chapters through the recurrence of elements
creating a close relationship between them. The most significant of these is
the actual physical presence of the Sperm Whale as part of AHAB's
body in the form of Ahab's ivory leg. The whale is a physical part of
AHAB in this instance; it is literally a part of AHAB. MELVILLE also develops this
theme through the mysterious sense that AHAB has for the whale. AHAB
has a nearly psychic sense of MOBY DICK's presence, and more tragically,
the idea of Moby Dick perpetually haunts the formidable captain. This theme
serves in part to better explain the depth of emotion behind Ahab's quest for
the whale; as a living presence that haunts Ahab's life, he feels that he must
continue on his quest no matter the cost.

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

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The Contrast between Civilized and Pagan Society: The

relationship between QUEEQUEG and ISHMAEL throughout MOBY DICK generally
illustrates the prevalent contrast between civilized, specifically
Christian societies and uncivilized, pagan societies. The continued
comparisons and contrasts between these two types of societies is
often favourable for MELVILLE, particularly in the discussion of QUEEQUEG, the
most idealized character in the novel, whose uncivilized and imposing
appearance only obscures his actual honour and civilized manners. In
this respect, MELVILLE is fit simply to deconstruct QUEEQUEG and place him in
entirely sympathetic terms, finding the characters from civilized and
from uncivilized societies to be virtually identical. Nevertheless, MELVILLE
does not include these thematic elements simply for a lesson on other cultures;
a recurring theme equates non-Christian societies with diabolical behaviour,
particularly when in reference to AHAB. AHAB specifically chooses the three
pagan characters' blood when he wishes to temper his harpoon in the
name of the devil, while the most obviously corrupt character in MOBY DICK
is conspicuously the Persian FEDALLAH, whom the other characters believe
to be Satan camouflaged. With the exception of QUEEQUEG, equating the
pagan characters with Satan does align with the general religious overtones of
the novel, one which presumes Christianity as its basis and moral ground.
The Sea as a Place of Transition: In MOBY DICK, the sea
represents a transitional place between two distinct states. MELVILLE
shows this early on in the case of QUEEQUEG and the other ISOLATOES (Daggoo
and Tashtego), who represents the transition from uncivilized to
civilized society unbound by any specific nationality, but in an
overwhelming amount of cases this transitional theme relates to the
precarious line between life and death.

Harbingers and Superstition: A recurring theme throughout MOBY

DICK is the appearance of harbingers, superstitious and prophecies that
foreshadow a tragic end to the story. Even before ISHMAEL boards the
PEQUOD, the Nantucket strangers ELIJAH warns ISHMAEL and QUEEQUEG against
traveling with Captain AHAB. The Parsee FEDALLAH also has a prophetic

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15

dream concerning Ahab's quest against MOBY DICK, although he

misinterprets the dream to mean that Ahab will certainly kill Moby Dick. Indeed,
the characters are bound by superstition and myth: the only reason that
the PEQUOD kills a Right Whale is the legend that a ship will have good luck if it
has the head of a Right Whale and the head of a Sperm Whale on its opposing
sides. An additional harbinger of doom found in MOBY DICK occurs when a
hawk takes AHAB's hat, thus recalling the story of Tarquin and how his wife
Tanaquil predicted that it was a sign that he would become king of Rome.
The purpose of these omens throughout MOBY DICK is to create a
sense of inevitability. Even from the beginning of the journey the PEQUOD's
mission is doomed by Captain AHAB, and the invocation of various omens
serves to endow this mission with a sense of grandeur and destiny. It
is no suicide mission that Ahab undertakes, but a grand folly of hubris.

2. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the world's most famous and controversial
writers. For works such as "The Raven," which has been called the best-known
poem in the Western Hemisphere, he has assumed a place among the popular
imagination alongside William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and Thomas Malory,
author of the most famous Arthurian romance, Le Morte D'Arthur. Responses
to him have been more ambivalent in literary circles, however. French writers,
particularly Charles Baudelaire, have hailed Poe as a superior genius, and his
British and American admirers include George Bernard Shaw, Robert Frost,
Richard Wilbur, and Willa Cather. Somewhat less favorable reactions have come
from the American novelist Henry James, who sniped, "An enthusiasm for Poe
is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection" (Clarke 209), and British
writer Aldous Huxley, who said: "To the most sensitive and high-souled man in
the world we should find it hard to forgive, shall we say, the wearing of a
diamond ring on every finger. Poe does the equivalent of this in his poetry; we
notice the solecism and shudder" (Clarke 251).
Among the general public, Poe is known primarily for his mastery of the
Gothic genre. Made popular in the 18th C and early 19th C by British writers
such as Horace Walpole and Mary Shelley, Gothic literature has a number of

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conventions, including evocations of horror, suggestions of the supernatural,

and dark, exotic locales such as castles and crumbling mansions. Poe's short
stories "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Ligeia" are both classic examples
of the genre. Poe also has earned a reputation among general readers for his
musical poems, such as "Annabel Lee" and "The Bells," and his fascination
with death, particularly the death of women--a subject that has been studied
by the biographers Kenneth Silverman and Marie Bonaparte, as well as others.
Perhaps Poe's most enduring contribution to popular culture has been his
invention of the detective story. His chief detective, C. Auguste Dupin, and
stories such as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" have inspired countless
imitators, most notably Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.
Much of Poe's popularity has grown out of a fascination with his peculiar,
tortured life. Abandoned by his father while he was still an infant, he lost his
mother to tuberculosis before he was three years old. Partially because of his
own petulance, he frequently fought with his foster father, John Allan, who
withdrew Poe from the University of Virginia before he had completed a year
there. While in his mid-20s, he married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm
and for the next several years maintained an unusual relationship with Virginia,
whom he called "Sissy," and her mother, whom he sometimes treated as his
own mother. For several years in the 1840s, he suffered through Virginia's bout
with tuberculosis, finally losing her in 1847. Always poor, he continually ruined
opportunities for success by embarrassing himself and antagonizing important
figures. Several incidents, including a suicide attempt, suggest that Poe suffered
from some kind of mental illness, and the modern researcher Kay Redfield
Jamison has presented compelling evidence that he was manic-depressive.
Even after death, misfortune haunted Poe. Rufus Griswold, an enemy whom
Poe curiously had chosen to be his literary executor, wrote a condemnatory
obituary, which begins: "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltmore the day
before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved
by it. The poet was well known personally or by reputation, in all this country;
he had readers in England, and in several states of Continental Europe; but he
had few or no friends and the regrets for his death will be suggested principally

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by the consideration that in him literary art lost one of its most brilliant, but
erratic stars" (69). In another work, Griswold further tarnished Poe's reputation
by misquoting his letters and overplaying Poe's drinking problem, which modern
scholars attribute to a low tolerance for alcohol rather than habitual abuse. The
physical and mental struggles of this life emerged in fictional form in Poe's
highly autobiographical writings. Calling Poe "the hero of all his tales," the
critic Roger Asselineau has written: "If Roderick Usher, Egaeus, Metzengerstein,
and even Dupin are all alike, if Ligeia, Morella, and Eleonora look like sisters, it
is because, whether he consciously wanted to or not, he always takes the story
of his own life as a starting point, a rather empty story on the whole since he
had mostly lived in his dreams, imprisoned by his neuroses and obsessed by the
image of his dead mother" (60). To support this assertion, Asselineau cites
Poe's own testimony: "The supposition that the book of the author is a thing
apart from the author's Self is, I think, ill-founded" (Asselineau 52).
While literary scholars have analyzed all of these aspects of Poe's work,
they have studied many more, as well. Of particular interest is Poe's fascination
with psychology. An outspoken admirer of phrenology, a pseudoscience based
on the premise that various functions are controlled by specific regions of the
brain, he tirelessly explored subjects such as self-destruction, madness, and
imagination in works such as "The Imp of the Perverse," "William Wilson,"
and "Ulalume." If the mind was Poe's favorite place, it should come as no
surprise that many of his tales are set there. Stories such as "Ligeia," "Landor's
Cottage," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "MS Found in a Bottle," and The
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym all make more sense when read as journeys
into and around the mind rather than accounts of the physical world.
Specifically, I have argued in Poe in His Right Mind that Poe had an unusually
potent right cerebral hemisphere--which many researchers believe plays an
important part in visual imagery, music, emotions, reverie, and self-destructive
urges--and tapped the resources of this psychological region to create his
extraordinarily powerful works.
Poe's literary criticism, which he produced in great volume as editor of
the Southern Literary Messenger and other publications, also has attracted

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attention from scholars. Indeed, Poe is the only major American writer to excel
in poetry, fiction, and criticism. In an era when writers such as Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and John Greenleaf Whittier were
using literature largely to pursue truth or inculcate morals, Poe argued in "The
Poetic Principle" that truth is not the object of literature and condemned what
he called "the heresy of The Didactic." Indeed, a close look at Poe's work
reveals almost no extended attention to contemporary or even universal social
issues, such as community, democracy, slavery, and national identity. Instead,
he praised the "poem per se--the poem which is a poem and nothing more--this
poem written solely for the poem's sake." "Beauty," he wrote in "The
Philosophy of Composition," "is the sole legitimate province of the poem." In his
regard for beauty, "effect," and form, Poe anticipated the critical principles of
many later writers.

2.1. Poe’s poetry.

Poe’s first 3 published volumes were all poetry, and this is the
form to which he devoted most of his last years of life. There has been no
uniform opinion in the success of Poe as a poet. Many, as ALDOUS HUXLEY,
called him the Jingle man. Be as it may, his influence of French symbolist
poets and through them on such major American poets as T.S. ELLIOT
and WALLANCE STEVENS, was paramount. As a poet, Poe defended the
Platonic idea of the world as an imperfect copy of the eternal beauty
in a higher sphere.
Poe published three volumes of poetry: TAMERLANE (1827), AL AARAAF
(1829) and POEMS (1931). His first published book, TAMERLANE AND OTHER

POEMS is a narrative about the 14th C Mongol conqueror. AL AARAAF includes

several shorter poems apart from the title one. Al Aaraaf is the Moslem
term for limbo, a place in the future for those neither wholly good nor
wholly evil. It is the spiritual heaven of the poet, where the ideal platonic
beauty is kept directly instead of being adulterated on earth. POEMS is
the 3rd volume published by Poe which contains some of the best lyrics of the
writer. TO HELEN, probably the most famous poem in this volume, celebrates an
idealized woman as the incarnation of the pure, unattainable,

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romanticized beauty of antiquity. It is the abstract thirst of the youthful

male for the perfect woman.
THE RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS (1845) is a collection of verse published in
periodicals and revisions of many early pieces. THE RAVEN is the best known of
Poe’s verse. The underlying theme is once more the death of a beautiful
woman. The name of the woman is Leonore. At midnight, the “I” of the poem is
reading old books in a melancholy mood. He is full of sorrow for his lost
Leonore. He hears a tapping at the chamber door and thinks to himself that
only a visitor is at the door. He opens the door and sees nothing. He then
opens a window and comes in a raven that says nothing, but perches on a bust
of Pallas (In the greek mythology, he was the God of wisdom) above the door.
He asks many questions to the raven, but all it says is “nevermore” (=never again).

The climax of the poem is when the “I” asks the bird if there is life in afterlife,
where he can be together again with Leonore, but the answer of the Raven is
again “nevermore”.

2.2. Poe’s Tales.

Although Poe wished to be thought of primarly as a poet, his short
stories brought him a far greater fame. His short stories are usually divided in
three main groups:

2.2.1. Comic tales

These are a grotesque satire (with a macabre sense of humor) or
American society and a painful and terrible portrait of human society. Some of
them are journalistic satires of journalistic hoaxes.

2.2.2. Tales of horror.

They are usually told by a psychopathological narrator. Poe uses all the
typical Gothic devices to show that what a character sees can tell us more
about his inner world, distorted from a wrong vision of reality, than about the
external world. His stories are therefore concerned no so much about
events as with the minds which perceive them. We can subdivided his
horror tales in:

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• Murder Stories: THE CAST OF THE MAONTILLADO is one of Poe’s most

realistic horror tale of murder. It achieves verisimilitude by a clearly defined
setting (an Italian city), time (carnival) and characters in a realistic dialogue.
MONTRESOR has been insulted by FORTUNATO and vows revenge. He
decides that this revenge will be both slow and sweet. He tempts FORTUNATO
to taste his amontillado in his underground vaults by appealing to his pride
as expert in wines. There FORTUNATO is chained and buried alive. Poe
believed that sadism is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart
and this is indeed a tale of sadism.
• Stories of love and marriage: Among his tales of love and marriage, his
most famous one is LIGERIA. It was one of Poe’s favorites. The narrator
deeply loves his first wife, LIGERIA. After her death he married Lady ROWENA
TRAVANION who is only interested in his money, and lives with her in a Gothic
abbey in England. ROWENA dies. At the end the corpse raises and the
narrator looks into wild eyes of Lady LIGERIA. This tale of reincarnation might
be interpreted as a hallucination of the narrator who is thinking of LIGERIA as
ROWENA dies.
• Stories of death: THE FALL OF THE HOUSES OF USHER has been considered
his finest story. It deals with the death of the last two members of the Usher
family: RODERICK and his twin sister, MADELINE. The narrator visits his old
friend RODERICK in Usher’s Gothic family castle. His sister MADELEINE
apparently dies and is buried alive in the catacombs of the castle. She
emerges from the tomb to hug RODERICK who dies of terror. The narrator
feels in horror to witness the collapse of the entire house.

2.2.3. Tales of Ratiocination.

Edgar Allan Poe in his tales of ratiocination created the detective
story, which is going to be so popular up to the present time. In these
tales, he turns from the investigation of a diseased mind to the study of an
analytic mind and the coolly intellectual detective. Poe created in fact the first
detective of renown in literature: AUGUSTINE DUPIN, who appears in three
stories. Before CONAN DOYLE, the creator of SHERLOCK HOLMES, POE created the
formula and structure of the typical detective story.

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21

3. Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

The ROMANTIC MOVEMENT, which originated in Germany but quickly
spread to England, France, and beyond, reached America around the year
1820, some 20 years after WILLIAM WORDSWORTH and SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
had revolutionized English poetry by publishing Lyrical Ballads. In America as in
Europe, fresh new vision electrified artistic and intellectual circles. Yet
there was an important difference: Romanticism in America coincided
with the period of national expansion and the discovery of a
distinctive American voice. The solidification of a national identity and the
surging idealism and passion of Romanticism nurtured the masterpieces of "the
American Renaissance."
Romantic ideas centred around art as inspiration, the spiritual and
aesthetic dimension of nature, and metaphors of organic growth. Art, rather
than science, Romantics argued, could best express universal truth. The
Romantics underscored the importance of expressive art for the individual and
society. The development of the self became a major theme; self-
awareness a primary method. If, according to Romantic theory, self and
nature were one, self-awareness was not a selfish dead end but a mode of
knowledge opening up the universe. If one's self were one with all humanity,
then the individual had a moral duty to reform social inequalities and relieve
human suffering. The idea of self (which suggested selfishness to earlier
generations) was redefined. New compound words with positive
meanings emerged: self-realization, self-expression, self-reliance.
Romanticism was affirmative and appropriate for most American poets
and creative essayists. America's vast mountains, deserts, and tropics embodied
the sublime. The Romantic spirit seemed particularly suited to
American democracy: It stressed individualism, affirmed the value of
the common person, and looked to the inspired imagination for its
aesthetic and ethical values. Certainly the New England Transcendentalists
(RALPH WALDO EMERSON, HENRY DAVID THOREAU, and their associates) were
inspired to a new optimistic affirmation by the Romantic movement. In New
England, Romanticism fell upon fertile soil.

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3.1. Transcendentalism.
The Transcendentalist movement was a reaction against 18th C
rationalism and a manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th C
thought. The movement was based on a fundamental belief in the unity
of the world and God. The soul of each individual was thought to be identical
with the world (a microcosm of the world itself). The doctrine of self-reliance
and individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the
individual soul with God.
TRANSCENDENTALISM was intimately connected with CONCORD, a
small New England village 32 kilometers west of Boston. CONCORD was
the first inland settlement of the original Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Surrounded by forest, it was and remains a peaceful town close enough to
Boston's lectures, bookstores, and colleges to be intensely cultivated, but far
enough away to be serene. CONCORD was the site of the first battle of the
American Revolution, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem commemorating the
battle, Concord Hymn, has one of the most famous opening stanzas in
American literature.
CONCORD was the first rural artist's colony, and the first place to
offer a spiritual and cultural alternative to American materialism. It
was a place of high-minded conversation and simple living. EMERSON, who
moved to CONCORD in 1834, and THOREAU are most closely associated with the
town, but the locale also attracted the novelist NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, the
feminist writer MARGARET FULLER, the educator BRONSON ALCOTT, and the poet
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. The TRANSCENDENTAL CLUB was loosely organized in
1836.
The Transcendentalists published a quarterly magazine, The Dial, which
lasted four years and was first edited by Margaret Fuller and later by Emerson.
Reform efforts engaged them as well as literature. A number of
Transcendentalists were abolitionists, and some were involved in
experimental utopian communities such as nearby Brook Farm (described
in Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance) and Fruitlands.

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Unlike many European groups, the Transcendentalists never

issued a manifesto. They insisted on individual differences (on the
unique viewpoint of the individual.) American Transcendental Romantics
pushed radical individualism to the extreme. American writers often saw
themselves as lonely explorers outside society and convention. The
American hero (like Herman Melville's Captain Ahab or Edgar Allan Poe's Arthur
Gordon Pym) typically faced risk, or even certain destruction, in the
pursuit of metaphysical self-discovery. For the Romantic American writer,
nothing was a given. Literary and social conventions, far from being helpful,
were dangerous. There was tremendous pressure to discover an authentic
literary form, content, and voice. It is clear from the many masterpieces
produced in the three decades before the U.S. Civil War (1861-65) that
American writers rose to the challenge.

3.2. The author.

Born on LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK, WALT WHITMAN was a part-time
carpenter and man of the people, whose brilliant, innovative work
expressed the country's democratic spirit. WHITMAN was largely self-
taught; he left school at the age of 11 to go to work, missing the sort of
traditional education that made most American authors respectful imitators of
the English. His LEAVES OF GRASS (1855), which he rewrote and revised
throughout his life, contains Song of Myself, the most stunningly original
poem ever written by an American. The enthusiastic praise that Emerson
and a few others heaped on this daring volume confirmed WHITMAN in his poetic
vocation, although the book was not a popular success.
A visionary book celebrating all creation, LEAVES OF GRASS was inspired
largely by Emerson's writings, especially his essay THE POET, which
predicted a robust, open-hearted, universal kind of poet uncannily like WHITMAN
himself. The poem's innovative, unrhymed, free-verse form, open celebration of
sexuality, vibrant democratic sensibility, and extreme Romantic assertion that
the poet's self was one with the poem, the universe, and the reader
permanently altered the course of American poetry.

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 Topic 53:
La no
ovela, el cuento y la poesía en E
Estados Unidos:: H. Melville, E.A
A. Poe y W. Whitman.
24

More than any other wrriter, WHIITMAN inv

vented tthe myth
h of
dem
mocratic America.
A T Americ
The icans of alll nations att any time upon the earth
e
havee probablyy the fullesst poeticall nature. The
T United
d States is essentially
ly the
greaatest poem
m. When WHITMAN wrrote this, he
h daringlyy turned upside down
the general opinion that
t Ame
erica was
s too arro
ogant an
nd new to
o be
poettic. He invvented a timeless
t Am
merica of the free im
magination
n, peopled with
pioneering spirits of all nations. D.H.
D Lawre
ence, the British
B novvelist and poet,
accu
urately calle
ed him the
e poet of th
he "open ro
oad."

Bib
bliograp
phy
Melville
e: www.monkeyynotes.com; ww
ww.classicnotes..com
Poe: http://www.uncpp.edu/home/can
nada/work/allam
m/17841865/lit//poe.htm
CEDE; Editorial MAD

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 Topic 53: Some poems from E. A. Poe.
25

Poe’s poems
The Raven
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door--
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide the door--
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"--
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore--
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
'Tis the wind and nothing more.

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he,
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then the ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

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 Topic 53: Some poems from E. A. Poe.
26

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door--
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if its soul in that one word he did outpour
Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more than muttered: "Other friends have flown before--
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never--nevermore.'"

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!--

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore--
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--

"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken!

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 Topic 53: Some poems from E. A. Poe.
27

Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadows on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!

To Helen
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche

How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

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 Topic 53: Brief summary
28

Brief summary: La novela, el cuento y la poesía en Estados Unidos: H. Melville, E.A. Poe y W. Whitman.
- HERMAN MELVILLE was born into a well-off religious New York family, but his comfortable childhood ended too soon.
- The author:
♦ The Melvilles sank into genteel poverty, dependent on money doled out by richer relatives. These pressures drove Melville to the sea.
♦ As he recounted his adventures for his family, however, they urged him to write the tales down. In this way, he discovered his calling.
♦ Melville's account of his time in the Marquesas, the novel TYPEE, was published in the spring of 1846 The book was a great popular success.
Today, Melville probably would have won a place on best-seller lists and an article in People magazine as the man who lived with the cannibals.
♦ Melville continued to draw on his sea adventures in the novels OMOO (1847), REDBURN (1849), and WHITE-JACKET (1850). Another novel, MARDI,
published in 1849, was an unsuccessful attempt to add fantasy and philosophy to sea stories.
♦ However, MOBY-DICK was a different sea novel. When he began the book, he intended to call it THE WHALE and promised his publishers that it
would be another popular sea adventure.
___ But midway through his writing something changed. Melville had moved Massachusetts and met NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
___ In HAWTHORNE, Melville found a kindred spirit, a man who had fulfilled himself writing the kind of dark, complex books that he wanted.
___ Soon after he met Hawthorne, Melville began furiously to rewrite The Whale.
- MOBY DICK is the story of the voyage of the whaling ship PEQUOD.
♦ The 1 publication of MOBY DICK was in 1851. It was published in 3 volumes & was censored for some of its political & moral content.
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THE MAJOR CHARACTERS:

♦ AHAB is the PEQUODS captain who was injured by a white whale and with only one leg. This injury brings on the fierce desire for revenge that
underlies MOBY-DICK's basic plot.
___ One part of his character is symbolized by his name: AHAB was a evil king of Israel punished for his disobedience. Throughout the book
Ahab disobeys the rules of religion, business & common sense and like the biblical Ahab, he is punished.
___ His self-awareness, along with his intelligence and will-power, makes Ahab in many ways a genuine tragic hero. Indeed, Melville links
him directly to Greek heroes like Prometheus and Perseus, and indirectly to Shakespearean heroes like King Lear and Macbeth.
♦ You don't really learn much about the everyday life of ISHMAEL, the man who tells the story:
___ His name tells us something. In the Bible ISHMAEL was an outcast and at the start of MOBY-DICK he does seem alone, escaping from smth.
___ Ishmael most evident facet is a love for the dreamy philosophizing he practices at the masthead.
___ Closely linked to Ishmael's love of philosophizing is his love of knowledge for its own sake.
→ AHAB wants to control the universe; ISHMAEL wants to know all about it.
→ Whereas for AHAB whales represent all that is hateful, for ISHMAEL they stand for all that is mysterious.
♦ MOBY-DICK In some ways the most important figure in the novel.
___ To AHAB, who lost a leg to the whale, he's an evil part of an evil universe.
___ To STARBUCK, who maintains faith in a world ruled by a just God, Moby-Dick is simply a dumb animal who injured Ahab out of instinct.
___ To ISHMAEL, whales represent the unknown, and Moby-Dick is the greatest mystery of all.
♦ QUEEQUEG, wants to see the world from a whaling ship, specifically to learn about Christianity (which he soon decides is sadly corrupt).
♦ STARBUCK is sober, patient, cautious & religious. Throughout the book he speaks out against Captain Ahab's madness.
___ His practical side makes him understand that the ship's true job is to make a profit for owners and crew.
___ His morality prevents him from killing the captain, though he clearly sees that AHAB is leading the PEQUOD's crew to a disaster.
♦ FEDALLAH, Ahab's harpooner, was hidden with his crew for weeks in the Pequod's hold. His turbaned figure seems to represent the dark side
of Ahab's character, though the crew can't determine whether he controls Ahab or Ahab controls him. It is Fedallah who prophesies the
conditions for Ahab's death: Ahab will see Fedallah dead first; and that hemp alone will be the instrument of Ahab's death
THE MAIN THEMES:
♦ AHAB AS A BLASPHEMOUS FIGURE: An theory that runs through MOBY DICK is that Ahab's quest against the whale is a blasphemous activity.
The blasphemy takes two forms:
___ a) Ahab thinks himself the equal of God. ___ b) Rejection of God altogether for an alliance with the devil
This idea is even introduced during Father Mapple's sermon. AHAB remains in collaboration with FEDALLAH, a character rumored to be
The lesson of the sermon is to warn against the blasphemous the devil himself. When AHAB receives his harpoon he asks that it be
idea that a ship can carry a man where God does not reign. baptized in the name of the devil, not in the name of the father.
♦ For Melville, THE WHALE IS AN INDEFINITE FIGURE, as best shown in "The Whiteness of the Whale", where the author defines the whiteness as
absence of colour and thus finds the whale as having an absence of meaning.
♦ MOBY DICK AS A PART OF AHAB: Throughout the novel, MELVILLE creates a relationship between AHAB and Moby Dick. The most significant of
these is the physical presence of the Sperm Whale as part of AHAB's body in the form of Ahab's ivory leg. Furthermore, AHAB has a nearly
psychic sense of Moby Dick's presence.
♦ THE CONTRAST BETWEEN CIVILIZED & PAGAN SOCIETY through the relation btw QUEEQUEG & ISHMAEL. The continued comparisons & contrasts
btw these 2 types of societies is often favorable for Melville, particularly in the discussion of QUEEQUEG, whose uncivilized & imposing
appearance only obscures his actual honor & civilized manners. Characters from civilized & uncivilized societies are virtually identical

- EDGAR ALLAN POE is one of the world's most famous and controversial writers:
- Attittudes towards POE have been ambivalent in literary circles. French writers, particularly CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, and his British & American
admirers (including G. B. SHAW) have hailed POE as a superior genius. Somewhat less favorable reactions have come from the American novelist
HENRY JAMES & the Briton ALDOUS HUXLEY.
th th
- POE is widely known for his mastery of the Gothic genre. Made popular in the 18 C & early 19 C by British writers such as HORACE WALPOLE and
MARY SHELLEY, Gothic literature has a number of conventions, including evocations of horror, suggestions of the supernatural, and dark, exotic
locales such as castles and crumbling mansions. Poe's short stories The Fall of the House of Usher and Ligeia are both classic examples of the genre.
- Much of Poe's popularity has grown out of a fascination with his peculiar, tortured life.
♦ Abandoned by his father while he was still an infant, he lost his mother to tuberculosis before he was 3 years old.
♦ Partially because of his own petulance, he frequently fought with his foster father, JOHN ALLAN, who withdrew Poe from the University of Virginia
before he had completed a year there.
♦ In his mid-20s, he married his 13-year-old cousin VIRGINIA CLEMM. In the 1840s, he suffered through Virginia's tuberculosis, who died in 1847.
♦ Always poor, he continually ruined opportunities for success by embarrassing himself and antagonizing important figures.
♦ Several incidents, including a suicide attempt, suggest that Poe suffered from some kind of mental illness.
♦ The physical and mental struggles of this life emerged in fictional form in Poe's highly autobiographical writings.

Iván Matellanes’ Notes

 Topic 53: Brief summary
29
- POE’s poetry also has earned a reputation among general readers for his musical poems, such as Annabel Lee & The Bells, and his fascination
with death, particularly the death of women.
♦ His influence of French symbolist poets & through them on such major American poets as T.S. ELLIOT & WALLANCE STEVENS was paramount.
♦ As a poet, he defended the Platonic idea of the world as an imperfect copy of the eternal beauty in a higher sphere.
♦ TAMERLANE AND OTHER POEMS (1827) is a narrative about the 14 C Mongol conqueror
th

♦ AL AARAAF (1829) includes several shorter poems apart from the title one. Al Aaraaf is the Moslem term for limbo, a place in the future for
those neither wholly good nor wholly evil. It is the spiritual heaven of the poet, where the ideal platonic beauty is kept directly instead of
being adulterated on earth
♦ POEMS (1931) is the 3 volume published by Poe which contains some of the best lyrics of the writer. To Helen, probably the most famous poem in
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this volume, celebrates an idealized woman as the incarnation of the pure, unattainable, romanticized beauty of antiquity. It is the abstract
thirst of the youthful male for the perfect woman
♦ THE RAVEN AND OTHER POEMS (1845) is a collection of verse published in periodicals and revisions of many early pieces. THE RAVEN is the best
known of Poe’s verse. The underlying theme is once more the death of a beautiful woman. The name of the woman is Leonore. At midnight, the “I”
of the poem is reading old books in a melancholy mood. He is full of sorrow for his lost Leonore. He hears a tapping at the chamber door and thinks
to himself that only a visitor is at the door. He opens the door and sees nothing. He then opens a window and comes in a raven that says nothing, but
perches on a bust of Pallas (In the greek mythology, he was the God of wisdom) above the door. He asks many questions to the raven, but all it says
is “nevermore” (=never again). The climax of the poem is when the “I” asks the bird if there is life in afterlife, where he can be together again with
Leonore, but the answer of the Raven is again “nevermore”.
- Although Poe wished to be thought of as a poet, his SHORT STORIES brought him a far greater fame. They’re usually divided in 3 main groups:
♦ Comic tales are a grotesque satire (with a macabre sense of humor) or American society and a painful and terrible portrait of human society.
♦ Tales of terror are usually told by a psychopathological narrator. His stories are concerned no so much about events as with the minds
which perceive them. We can subdivided his horror tales in:
___ Murder Stories: THE CAST OF THE MAONTILLADO is one of Poe’s most realistic horror tale of murder.
___ Stories of love and marriage: Among his tales of love and marriage, his most famous one is LIGERIA.
___ Stories of death: THE FALL OF THE HOUSES OF USHER has been considered his finest story.
♦ Edgar Allan Poe in his tales of ratiocination created the detective story, which is going to be so popular up to the present time. Poe
created in fact the first detective of renown in literature: Augustine Dupin, who appears in three stories.
___ THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE have inspired many imitators, most notably SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, creator of Sherlock Holmes.

- WALT WHITMAN:
- The Romantic movement, which originated in Germany but quickly spread to England, France, and reached America around the year 1820.
♦ A fresh new vision electrified artistic & intellectual circles. Yet there was an important difference: Romanticism in America coincided with the
period of national expansion and the discovery of a distinctive American voice.
♦ The development of the self became a major theme: self-awareness a primary method.
♦ The Romantic spirit seemed particularly suited to American democracy: It stressed individualism, affirmed the value of the common
person, and looked to the inspired imagination for its aesthetic and ethical values.
♦ TRANSCENDENTALIST MOVEMENT was based on a fundamental belief in the unity of the world and God. The soul of each individual was thought
to be identical w/the world. The doctrine of self-reliance & individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the individual soul w/God.
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___ TRANSCENDENTALISM was connected w/CONCORD, a small N. England village near Boston & the site of the 1 American Revolution battle.
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___ CONCORD was the 1 rural artist's colony, and the 1 place to offer a spiritual and cultural alternative to American materialism.
___ It was a place of high-minded conversation & simple living. Many writers lived there, such as NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE …
♦ TRASCENDENTALISTS insisted on individual differences (on the unique viewpoint of the individual.) American Transcendental Romantics
pushed radical individualism to the extreme. American writers often saw themselves as lonely explorers outside society and convention.
___ The American hero (Herman Melville's Captain AHAB or Edgar Allan Poe's ARTHUR GORDON PYM) typically faced risk, or even certain
destruction, in the pursuit of metaphysical self-discovery.
- The author:
♦ WALT WHITMAN was a part-time carpenter & man of the people, whose brilliant, innovative work expressed the country's democratic spirit.
♦ Whitman was largely self-taught, as he left school at the age of 11 to go to work, missing the sort of traditional education that made most
American authors respectful imitators of the English.
♦ More than any other writer, WHITMAN invented the myth of democratic America
♦ His LEAVES OF GRASS (1855), which he rewrote and revised throughout his life, contains SONG OF MYSELF, the most stunningly original poem
ever written by an American.
___ The poem's innovative, unrhymed, free-verse form, open celebration of sexuality, vibrant democratic sensibility, and extreme Romantic assertion
that the poet's self was one with the poem, the universe, and the reader permanently altered the course of American poetry.

Iván Matellanes’ Notes