Hermann Melville "Moby Dick"

I. Hermann Melville “Moby Dick”

1.1 The evolution of romantic ocean imagery in “Moby Dick”

In his pursuit of a new and more complex vision of truth through fiction in Moby- Dick, Melville drew upon life experience as well as a wealth of reading. His literary influences include, perhaps most notably, the Bible and Shakespeare‘s dramas. His more immediate precursors – English poets including Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, and Byron and his fellow American writers, Emerson and Hawthorne – also helped to shape the language and philosophy Melville weaves into his own text. These writers and their work marked a new appreciation of human interaction with the natural world. They explored mountains, valleys, rivers, and deserts, imbuing them with new significance and lending new insights to our collective imagination. Perhaps the most intriguing setting of all, however, remained the vast and mysterious sea. The ocean was prime territory for both actual and imaginary exploration when Moby-Dick was published in 1851. While much of the physical seascape remained unsounded, the history of human imagination of the ocean extended from classical mythology through the then-recent musings of the Romantic poets. This chapter will provide a focused comparison of the image of the ocean envisioned by several of these poets and Melville‘s vision of the ocean in Moby- Dick. This analysis will establish the sea as an essential setting for literary art that Melville transforms into his own vision of the cosmos.

Keats‘s ―On the Sea‖ makes a fitting point of departure for Ishmael‘s narration in Loomings.‖ Although Herschel Parker writes that ―Keats had not been a powerful early influence on [Melville]‖ (2: 325), ―On the Sea‖ provides an example of the quintessential vision of the ocean in Romantic poetry. Melville takes up the simple, elegant expressions set out by Keats‘s poem and expands them into a grander, more detailed vision. It is as if in his time spent commiserating with a sub-sub librarian or as a country schoolmaster, Ishmael has come across this poem and taken it as an invocation. He embarks on a sea quest, ostensibly hunting for whales, but more importantly searching for what he calls the ungraspable phantom of life‖ (Moby-Dick 4). ―On the Sea‖ bears most similarity to Loomings‖ when the speaker shifts from observation and wonder into an invitation: Oh ye who have your eyeballs vex‘d and tir‘d, / Feast them upon the wideness of the sea‖ (Keats 9-10). The imperative form of the verb indicates a kindhearted command of sorts, urging men to take comfort in the sea. According to Alain Corbin, the idea of visiting the sea to regain one‘s health and well-being was a popular notion that began in the middle of the eighteenth century. He writes that the ―sea was expected to cure the evils of urban civilization‖ (62). This sentiment is one that both Keats and Melville use as a jumping-off point to sea exploration.

―Vex‘d and tir‘d‖ is exactly how one may describe Ishmael‘s state of mind at the outset of ―Loomings.‖ Ishmael, however, details in more evocative, concrete terms why he feels thus: he has no money, he‘s bored, with ―nothing particular to interest [him] on shore.‖ He finds himself ―growing grim about the mouth,‖ ―involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral‖ he encounters (Moby-Dick 3). In short, Ishmael is depressed to the point of suicide. As he sees it, it‘s either the pistol and ball‖ or take quietly to the ship‖ to ―sail about a little and see the watery part of the world‖ (3). Even within these first few lines of Ishmael‘s narration, Melville begins to create a book whose ―force and stature heightens the soft idealistic ruminations and metaphysics of the Romantics, pronouncing instead a rawness of expression that achieves singular clarity and resolution (Thomson 11). This shift continues to intensify as ―Loomings‖ unfolds.

Melville exponentially increases the size and scope of the Romantic idea of human interaction with the sea. Keats uses the word ―feast‖ to emphasize how the sight of ―the wideness of the sea‖ can nourish men‘s souls (10). Melville, in turn, makes much of this connection between the ―eyeball‖ and the sea. Ishmael contends that, ―If they but knew it, almost all men [. . .] cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me‖ (3). He proceeds to take the reader on a visual tour of all the instances in which men commune through eye contact with water, all of which, he illustrates, is ultimately a part of the sea. He starts in Manhattan, observing how all of ―streets take you water ward,‖ and once we arrive at the shore, points to ―the crowds of water-gazers there Interestingly enough, Ishmael compares these crowds of men standing at the edge of the city to ―silent sentinels‖ (4), and it is this remarkable quiet that complements Keats‘s evocation of the value of escaping to the sea to relieve our ―ears [. . .] dinned with uproar rude, / Or fed too much with cloying melody‖ (11-12). Melville posits that the sights and sounds of the ocean are somehow universally appealing to our human sensibilities. He muses that its ―magnetic virtue‖ exerts a force attracting men from all walks of life and all corners of the world to the water‘s edge: ―here they all unite‖ (4). This common fascination with the sea remains a mystery – one Ishmael is eager to explore.

Melville also argues for the necessity of water imagery in art. Ishmael directs our attention to an artist who ―desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape‖ (4). The overtly syrupy tone of this paragraph belies more than a hint of criticism of such an idyllic scene, which can be read as a dig at his Romantic precursors; nevertheless, Ishmael insists that ―the chief element‖ the artist employs in his rendering of idealized nature can be nothing other than water: ―yet all were in vain, unless the shepherd‘s eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him‖ (Moby-Dick 4-5). Here again, Melville draws the reader‘s attention to the connection between the human eye and water, adding more force to a theme that he methodically builds into a climax.

This meditative relationship with water leads to a mystical revelation, both in the last two lines of Keats‘s ―On the Sea‖ and then more fully and emphatically in Melville‘s Loomings.‖ It is as though the inhabitants of ―Looming‖ described by Ishmael are following Keats‘s urging to ―Sit ye near some old cavern‘s mouth and brood / Until ye start, as if the sea nymphs quired‖. Here, Melville echoes Keats‘s notion that something ancient and mystical, like the song of sea nymphs, speaks to us through the ocean. Ishmael‘s series of rhetorical questions leads up to Melville‘s recognition of the mythical history associated with the ocean:

Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies — what is the one charm wanting? — Water there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he badly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and make him the own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. (Moby-Dick 5)

Here Melville insists on the universality of humanity‘s deep connection to the sea and the myth-making with which it has always been accompanied. After this crescendoing list of examples of man‘s universal attraction to water, Ishmael returns to the image of eye contact with water. He proposes that the deep meaning of the myth of Narcissus is that because ―he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, [he] plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all In this naturally reflective, fluid element, Melville posits, we all find ―the tormenting mild image‖ of ourselves, and that is why we embark upon the water to find our place in the world.

Already, in the first chapter of the novel, Melville has expanded upon the Romantic vision of the sea. Keats‘s clean, elegant language renders the sea as the ideal place for self-contemplation and an escape from the daily grind. But Melville develops the sea into a far grander and more comprehensive literary space: the essential setting of the quest for the meaning of life. Ishmael cannot be content with sitting on the shore for a few hours on his day off, as ―On the Sea‖ suggests one might; instead, he signs on as sailor on a whaling voyage. Such a journey is perhaps truly ―as nigh the water as [he] can get without falling in‖ (Moby-Dick 4), though falling in is certainly a very real danger, as Ishmael cautions at the end of ―The Mast-Head.‖ Here again, Melville amplifies our vision of the sea by having Ishmael not only dreamily ponder the ―mystic ocean at his feet,‖ taking it for the ―visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature,‖ but also realize the physical reality of the precarious situation in which he finds himself. He cautions the ―sunken-eyed young Platonist,‖ lest in such a romantic daydream he should slip and fall off the mast-head, and his ―identity come back in horror‖ (Moby-Dick 173). The ocean provides an enchanting escape from the fixity of land, but as a physical reality, it also threatens sudden death for those who see it as nothing more than a lovely symbol. Mere ―Pantheists,‖ or ―absent-minded young philosophers,‖ who seems to refer to some Romantic poets and/or Transcendentalists, may be better off contemplating their romantic ocean from the safety of the shore Earlier in ―The Mast-Head,‖ Melville makes an explicit reference to Lord Byron‘s Childe Harold, including him among the many ―romantic, melancholy, and absent-

minded young men‖ who seek to escape the ―carking cares of earth‖ aboard a whale ship (172). Melville even quotes from the section of Canto IV in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage known as the ―Apostrophe to the Ocean.‖ As Byron wrote it, the lines that Melville refers to are as follows: ―Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! / Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain‖ (IV.179.1603-4). But Melville makes a calculated substitution for Byron‘s word fleets, rendering the second line, ―Ten thousand blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain‖ (Moby-Dick 172, emphasis added). At first, it may seem that this minor change does not amount to much, but Melville‘s ironic word choice reveals a major difference of perspective between Ishmael‘s and Harold‘s perception of their relationship to the ocean, and therefore, to their sense of identity and place in the world.

The first difference one may notice between the two words, fleets and blubber- hunters, is their sound. A fairly general word, most commonly meaning a group of ships, fleets sounds swift and elegant, especially when followed by the assonance of the

remainder of the line, ―sweep over thee in vain.‖ Byron‘s language is beautifully written, sonorous, and pleasing to our sense of literary aesthetics. But Melville proves throughout his writing career that he too can be just as poetic, which is why his choice to insert blubber-hunters (a seemingly unpoetic phrase in comparison) in the middle of the line jars our ears in a way that should alert us to a major shift in significance as well as sound. Most obvious, the blubber-hunters are men employed on whale ships, a reference to the characters in the novel, but this recognition merely skims the surface. In his often-quoted letter to Richard Henry Dana, Jr., from May 1, 1850, Melville writes of his novel in progress:

It will be a strange sort of book, tho‘, I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho‘ you might 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 whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this. (Correspondence 162)

This all-too-fitting quotation, when applied to Melville‘s rewriting of Byron‘s line, offers us a vivid evidence that Moby-Dick, while it retains a ―little fancy‖ in its poetic language, also must necessarily employ some language as ―ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves‖ if it is to achieve a larger measure of truth. By such revisions in language, Melville hoped to illuminate a more comprehensive view of that unreachable goal.

In order to better make a comparison between these two authors‘ work, it may prove helpful to review some features of Byron‘s writing and philosophical attitudes. Byron is known as one of the ―dark Romantics,‖ famous for his ―heightened sensitivity to the dramatic and an inquiry into the depths of darkness and dread‖ (Thomson 12). He maintains a perfect Spenserian stanza and lush evocative language, however, even when addressing those favored dark themes. His ―Apostrophe to the Ocean‖ continues in what approximates a hymn of praise addressed directly to the ocean for its omnipotence and violent glory. In the closing stanza of the ―Apostrophe,‖ Harold proffers an outright profession of love and affection for the vast body of water. This personification of the ocean, a tradition that goes back to ancient mythology, is also a literary trope that Melville carries forward in Moby-Dick. Melville was inspired in part by Byron‘s poetry, which is apparent from his outright quoting of Byron and the fact that he had a great admiration for ―blackness‖ in literature (In ―Hawthorne and His Mosses,‖ Melville praises what he calls the ―great power of blackness‖ [234], in Hawthorne and Shakespeare alike). While he often echoes the Romantic poets in their perspective on man‘s interaction with nature, a close reading of the language Byron and Melville devote to the description of the ocean reveals Melville‘s innovation.

At the beginning of the ―Apostrophe,‖ Byron acknowledges the inadequacy and simultaneous urgency of language. He writes that he can ―ne‘er express, yet cannot all conceal‖ his human experience as a part of nature (IV.178.1602). This line points the reader back to Stanza 176, where the division between human existence and nature is described as being at paradoxical odds. Byron writes that communion with nature is our reward for toil and earthly strife: ―That we can yet feel gladden‘d by the sun, / And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear / As if there were no man to trouble what is clear‖ (IV.176.1582-4). The truth of life is simple, with the exception of man‘s struggle to find his place in the world, particularly in his compulsion to understand and express that struggle through language. The solution, it seems, according to Byron, is to recognize oneself as being at one with nature, submitting to its power and majesty in a loving respect, thus gaining its favor and protection. He supports this claim with the ultimate example: man‘s relationship with the sea.

In Moby-Dick we find clear echoes of the initial scenes in ―Alastor.‖ Beginning with the chapter ―The Counterpane,‖ we encounter another young adventurer, Ishmael, remembering a dream state in which ―a silent form or phantom‖ was seated at his bedside, placing its ―supernatural hand‖ in his own (29). The memory of this mysterious spirit hearkens back to ―Loomings‖ where Ishmael expresses his mission to search for the ungraspable phantom of life‖ found in the reflective surfaces of ―all rivers and oceans‖ (5). Like the Poet of ―Alastor,‖ Ishmael begins the novel by embarking on a sea journey in search of that phantom. In ―The Counterpane,‖ however, Melville develops Ishmael‘s character in significant ways that separate him from Shelley‘s Poet. Ishmael is reminded of his childhood dream-encounter with the phantom when he wakes up in the Spouter Inn to find himself enveloped in Queequeg‘s immense tattooed arms. He initially sees Queequeg as an outsider – a strange, otherworldly phantom of sorts – a ferocious cannibal to be avoided and feared. But fate forces them to share a bed, and by virtue of his inquiring mind, Ishmael quickly realizes that, despite differences in their outer appearances, he and Queequeg are of the same essence. This epiphany allows Ishmael to become more comfortable with the notion that his own imaginative inquiry is but a small part of the experience he will encounter on the whaling voyage. He submits himself to the realization that not only is he exploring the world, but the world is exploring him as well. As Thomson puts it, ―Ishmael moves from the subjective oppression of everyday life toward the unlimited prospect of the open sea‖ (201). Ishmael‘s attitude allows for openness to an adventure without borders or boundaries, regardless of whether that experience fits within a tradition of ideal Romantic expectations. It is an essential realization to have before embarking on such a journey, and one that undoubtedly alters Ishmael‘s destiny.