Herman Melville Biography and Themes Bartleby the Scrivener
Herman Melville Biography and Themes “Bartleby, the Scrivener” “Tartarus of Maids”
Melville Biography Timeline u 1819 b. New York u 1830 family bankrupt u 1832 -3 family falls apart; H. M. drops out of school u 1839 1 st voyage at sea
Timeline cont. u 1841 -1848 experiences at sea=37 books about it – At first popular reading & commercial success u 1841 -1844 on ships Acushnet and Lucy Ann u 1844 Typee u 1847 Marries Elizabeth Shaw; Omoo – But wants to change writing, wants meaning; wants to rebel, write banned books u 1849 Mardi and Redburn—failures critically and financially
Timeline cont. u 1850 White Jacket; develops relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne – Returns to “popular fiction” but hates it – Melville to Hawthorne (while working on Moby Dick): “Dollars damn me. [What I feel] most moved to write, that is banned—it will not pay. Yet altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, all my books are botches. ”
Timeline cont. u 1851 Moby Dick – Topic: 800 pages about guy trying to find whale and get back at it – Not as much of failure as Mardi, but not successful; received little notice – Wants to write novels written at two different levels u Said to Hawthorne: “secret motto that few would discern” u Said about Hawthorne’s books: “are superficially calculated to deceive— egregiously deceived, the superficial skimmer of books”
Timeline cont. u 1852 -1867 Pierre, Israel Potter, trip to Europe, edits Hawthorne’s works, The Confidence Man u 1867 abandons fiction – Magazine writing to make $ – Publishes short stories in Europe (including “Bartleby”) – Emotionally wrung out from failures, careful of issues of offensiveness, still trying out technique of writing for two audiences at once
Timeline cont. u 1866 -1886 Job in Custom House; sons die u 1886 Inheritance u 1891 H. M. dies u 1920 H. M. rediscovered as an author
- Slides: 7