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From 1850s

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[edit] Preaching to the Fish

St. Anthony of Padua,
a disciple of St. Francis,
preached to a multitude of fish
who genuflected, revered and honoured God
when they heard his clear voice.

Ahab, searching hell's seas
for the blunt-faced phantom,
the damned brute, white, ubiquitous,
the mystery of the universe,
preached a homily of tempered steel
to Moby Dick who heard
but ignored the steel's sharp sermon.

-Elmer F. Suderman

[edit] Herman Melville

"Oh, seems to me, there should be two ceaseless steeds for a bold man to ride,-- the Land and the Sea; and like circus-men we should never dismount, but only be steadied and rested by leaping from one to the other, while still, side by side, they both race round the sun."

--Ch. 26, from Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852)

Herman Melville (1819-1891), was an American writer whose novel Moby Dick is one of the towering literary achievements in the history of fiction. Based on a detailed knowledge of the sea, ships, and whaling, Moby Dick reveals Melville's profound insight into human nature and his preoccupation with human fate in the universe. It also contains one of the most fascinating characters in fiction, the obsessed, tormented Captain Ahab. Melville is also known for the short novel Billy Budd, in which he explores the tragic conflict between good and evil and the limitations of human justice.

Melville was born in New York City. After his father’s death in 1832, when Melville was 12, he worked for a time as a bank clerk, a helper on his uncle’s farm, and an assistant in his older brother’s fur factory. In January 1841 Melville sailed for the South Pacific on the whaling ship Acushnet. However, 18 months in the whaling trade under a strict captain proved so disillusioning that Melville and another young sailor deserted the ship in the Marquesas Islands in July 1842. He and his companion lived for a month among the natives, who were reputed to be cannibals.

In 1843 he enlisted as a seaman on the U.S. Navy frigate United States. After he returned to the United States, Melville began to write the story of his adventures in the South Seas. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846) is a suspenseful tale based upon his experiences in the Taipi Valley in Tahiti. Published in London and New York in 1846, it proved immediately popular. The sequel, Omoo, a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847), also attracted many readers, and Melville decided upon writing as his career.

In August 1847 Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of Massachusetts Supreme Court chief justice Lemuel Shaw. While trying unsuccessfully to get a government job, Melville wrote Mardi (1849), a complex allegorical fantasy, and Redburn, His First Voyage (1849), based on Melville’s first trip to sea. White-Jacket, or the World in a Man-of-War (1850), a fictional version of his experiences in the navy, exposed the abuse of sailors that was prevalent in the U.S. Navy at that time. Melville traveled to England to arrange for its publication there and enjoyed a short holiday in Europe. On his return, he moved with his wife to a farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He hoped to live comfortably as a writer and gentleman farmer.

In Pittsfield Melville became acquainted with the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. Under Hawthorne’s influence he wrote Moby Dick; or, The Whale (1851), his masterpiece, which he published with a dedication to Hawthorne. Although Moby Dick had some critical success, it failed to achieve the popularity of his earlier books. With Pierre (1852) Melville turned from the sea to a setting in the Berkshire Hills and New York City. After the publication of Israel Potter (1855), he collected some of the tales and sketches that had appeared in Putnam’s and Harper’s magazines and published them as The Piazza Tales (1856). In 1857 came The Confidence Man, a bitter, semi-allegorical satire.

By the mid-1850s Melville’s family was worried about his emotional stability and health as a result of his overwork and lack of success. They made it possible for him to travel to Europe and the Holy Land in 1856 and 1857. He later used the notes from his travels for a series of lectures. Melville made his final sea voyage in 1860, when he traveled to San Francisco on a clipper ship commanded by his brother, Thomas. In 1863, defeated by financial problems and by critical rejection, Melville sold his farm to his brother Allan and returned permanently to New York City. In 1866 he became a district inspector of customs, a post he held for 19 years.

Melville’s first volume of poetry, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, about the American Civil War (1861-1865), was published in 1866. He published Clarel, a long narrative poem about the Holy Land, in 1876. After Melville retired from the customs service in 1886, he relied on an income from family bequests and devoted his last years to study and writing. In his final years he produced two small books of poetry, John Marr and Other Sailors (1888) and Timoleon (1891). At his death, he left the short novel Billy Budd in manuscript form. Melville’s death in New York City on September 28, 1891, went virtually unnoticed. None of his books were still in print.