But of course Moby-Dick was not written in nineteenth-century vernacular. Before penning this book, Melville had been a promising but unambitious writer of travel tales inspired by his travels in the South Seas. His books sold well, but no one reading them would have imagined that he would someday author a masterpiece of world literature.
But then two things occurred. First, he met and befriended Nathaniel Hawthorne, for whom he developed a deep affinity. Second, in 1849 he acquired a complete set of Shakespeare. He devoured the plays, along with the works of Milton, Montaigne, Carlyle and a number of other great writers (the King James Bible was a major influence). As David Herd writes, Melville read “with the wide-eyed eagerness of the autodidact, hungry for the resources of the world’s great books.” And in doing so, the scope of Moby-Dick began to change. What had begun as another potboiler travelogue became an epic about fate, free will, money, marriage, and humanity’s place in the cosmos. You can almost pinpoint the moment in the book when the shift occurs. Whole chapters are written as scripts, complete with stage directions. Characters privately monologue in scenes Ishmael (the ostensible narrator) can’t possibly have witnessed. Melville knew he was now writing a book that transcended its time and place, a book for the ages, a work to compare with the best works of the classic authors he so loved. A miracle in print.
@DCCheerleaders@netflix I was horrified by how the white women cut 2 beautiful African American dancers right away. I thought there is the good old south as I know it. Just terrible racism the two privileged white judges should be ashamed!! It was like the abolition south.
@iconawrites I did not know that their tombs were there. It is a fantastic love story. It is strange I remember my father who did not read much discuss their story once. Now people don’t even know who they are. It makes me shudder that people don’t know these fascinating writers and lovers.