Herman Melville
麦尔维尔
(1819—1891)
Herman Melville
1. Three important things in his life:
* Going out to a
His experiences and adventures on the a furnished him with abundant material for his fiction writings, especially his masterpiece Moby Dick
2) His marriage
In the history of American literature there were two authors had similar marriages. Melville and Scott Fitzgerald, both married above them and had to do hackwork（纯粹为糊口而写的东西，庸俗作品）for the money they needed to keep their wives in their extravagant style.
3)His friendship with Hawthorne
During the summer of 1890 Melville and Hawthorne met and became good friends.
They shared similar ideas and opinions on most kinds of fields.
Especially against the background of Transcendental optimism, Melville agrees with Hawthorne’s Blackness --- the evil at the core of life. “Evil in life and the human soul help make life and man better”
“To scale great heights, we must come out of the lowest depths. The way to heaven is through hell. We need fiery baptism in the fierce flame of our bosoms.”
凤凰涅槃浴火重生
• The original design of Moby Dick was just a text on the whale fishery.
When Melville met Hawthorne, he had completed one third of Moby Dick. Without Hawthorne, Melville would have just written it about whaling hunting.
With the influence of Hawthorne, Melville rewrote it into a world classic with a mixture of:
游记、航海故事、寓言、捕鲸传说、有关鲸鱼与捕鲸业的百科全书、美国史诗、莎士比亚式的悲剧、抒情散文长诗、塞万提斯式的浪漫体小
In Token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
2. Melville’s Major Works
1) Novels
(1)Polynsie Trilogy “波里尼西亚三部曲” from his adventures among the people of the South Pacific islands
Typee 1846«泰皮»
Omoo 1847«欧穆»
Mardi1849«玛地»
(2) Redburn 1849 «雷得本» an account of his voyage to England
(3) White Jacket 1850 «白外衣»his life on a United States man-of-war军舰垃圾分类的画
(4) Pierre《皮埃尔》 (1852):
A darkly allegorical exploration of the nature of evil, which is psychologically complex and elaborate.
(5) Israel Potter《伊斯雷尔·波特》 (1855):
A historical romance
(6) The Confidence Man《骗子的化装表演》(1857):Satirizes the lfishness and commercialism of Melville’s time.
(7) Billy Budd《比利•巴德》(1891)
A novella about a young sailor, personifying innocence, doomed by the malevolent hatred of a ship’s officer, personifying evil.
2) Short stories
手掌川字纹The Piazza Tales《广场故事》(1856):Contains some of Melville’s finest shorter works
(1) Bartleby, the Scrivener
书记员巴特尔比
The story of Bartleby
is simply about a man
losing his will to live.
Subtitled, "A Story of Wall Street”, it is t in the business world of 19th-century New York.
Bartleby, a scrivener was good at the copying part of his job, but when asked to proofread aloud one day he simply replied, "I prefer not to." From that moment forward, he ud the phra "I prefer not to" for every task requested of him, eventually "preferring not to" do any work whatsoever.
Bartleby cho to rebel and become an anti-hero. It is intended to show the reader a dark side in all of us when the meaning of our existence is allowed to be challenged.
"Bartleby, the Scrivener" reflects Melville's own pessimism at the time. (2) Benito Cereno 《贝尼托·塞莱诺》
The story centers on a slave rebellion on board a Spanish merchant ship in 1799.
Earlier critics regarded Benito Cereno as a tale that primarily explores human depravity .
It is regarded by many as Melville's finest short story.
3) Poetry:
(1) Battle-Pieces and the Aspects of War《战事集》(1866)
主板接线图(2) Clarel 《克拉瑞尔》 (1876)
人斩Melville’s Masterpiece Moby-Dick«白鲸»，«莫比•狄克»
an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy, religion, the whaling industry
a Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting against fates in an indifferent and hostile world.
Moby-Dick---“the world’s greatest a novel”, compound of arch, pursuit, conflict, and catastrophe.
1. Plot
The novel’s plot is built on one conflict---
Ahab vs. the Whale
It is esntially the story of Ahab and his quest to defeat Moby Dick, for this white whale took Ahab’s leg.
• Ishmael伊什梅尔, feeling depresd, eks escape by going out to a on the whaling ship, Peqoud裴廓德号.
The captain is Ahab亚哈, the man with one leg.
成职
•
• Moby Dick, the white whale, had sheared off Ahab’s leg on a previous voyage, and Ahab resolves to hunt him.炸红薯丸
• The ship makes a good catch of whales but Ahab refus to turn back until he has killed his enemy.
• Eventually, the whale appears, and the Peqoud begins its doomed fight with it.
• On the third day, the whale carries the Peqoud along with it to its doom.• All on board the whaler get drowned, except one, Ishmael,who survives to tell the tale.
2. Characters
• Ishmael伊什梅尔/以实玛利
• The narrator of the story
• Name: the first son of Abraham (from The Bible) symbol of orphans, exiles,wanderers and social outcasts,etc.
starts out feeling bad
hopes to find an ideal life
零基础学习电脑comes to e the folly of Ahab eking to conquer nature
feels the significance of love and companionship
learns to accept,an attitude which ensures his survival
2) Ahab 亚哈
• Name: Ahab, King of Israel (from The Bible， a tyrant) symbol of evil • The tyrannical captain of the Pequod
Ahab has the qualities of a tragic hero – a great heart and a fatal flaw.
•
Melville portrayed Ahab an Emersonian lf-reliant individual.
But he is too much of lf-reliance.
For him, the only law is his own will;
To him the world exists for his sake;
He may do what he wills:
lives may be sacrificed
什么颜开
and nature may have
been vanquished.
His too much lf-reliance leads to death—physical, spiritual, emotional, at the expen of all el.
His tragedy stems from his extreme individualism or solipsism(唯我论). Moby Dick– a negative reflection upon Transcendentalism
3. Symbols in Moby Dick
1) The ship – Pequod and the voyage
2) Moby Dick
3) Ahab
4) Queequeg’s Coffin
1) The Pequod and the voyage
(1) a symbol of doom 必遭毁灭的命运
named after a Native American tribe in Massachutts
did not long survive the arrival of white men (extincted)
is painted gloomy black and covered in whale teeth and bones
(2) the Pequod -the ship of the American soul象征执著探寻自然界秘密的美国精神
the voyage - arch and discovery, the arch for the ultimate truth of experience/象征探索与发现的心灵历程
2) Moby Dick
The white whale is capable of many interpretations.
For he is a mixture of evil and goodness:
“paradoxically benign (kind and gentle) and malevolent (malicious and wicked),
