August 2, 2019

Yesterday, August 1, was the 200th anniversary of the birth of the celebrated United States author Herman Melville, in 1819. Melville ranks among the major authors of American literature. He wrote Moby-Dick, one of the world’s great novels, and his reputation rests largely on this book. But many of his other works are literary creations of a high order—blending fact, fiction, adventure, and symbolism. Melville’s vast personal experience in faraway places was remarkable even in the footloose and exploratory world of the 1800′s. Melville brought to his extraordinary adventures a vivid imagination and a philosophical skepticism, as well as a remarkable skill in handling the evolving American language. Melville was born in New York City. He died there, too, on Sept. 28, 1891.

Herman Melville was born 200 years ago on Aug. 1, 1819. Credit: Library of Congress

A number of events are marking Melville’s 200th birthday anniversary in 2019. In June, the Melville Society hosted a commemorative conference called “Melville’s Origins” at New York University. In Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Berkshire Historical Society is celebrating “Melville at 200” August 1 to 4 with the unveiling of a memorial plaque, a marathon reading of Moby-Dick, and events at Melville’s farm, Arrowhead (where Melville wrote Moby-Dick and other works). In Philadelphia, The Rosenbach museum’s exhibition “American Voyager: Herman Melville at 200” will display the author’s manuscripts, first editions, and whaling artifacts from October 2 through April 5, 2020.

This illustration from an early edition of Moby-Dick depicts the fearsome white whale. Credit: Public Domain

Melville lived his first 11 years in New York City. In 1831, his family moved to Albany, New York. Melville worked a variety of jobs before sailing to Liverpool, England, in 1837 as a cabin boy on a merchant ship. He described this trip in his novel Redburn. Melville returned to America and signed on as a seaman on the newly built whaling ship Acushnet for a trip in the Pacific Ocean. From this trip came the basic experiences recorded in several of his books, and above all, the whaling knowledge he put into Moby-Dick.

Melville sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts, on Jan. 3, 1841. He stayed on the Acushnet for 18 months. After the ship put in at Nuka Hiva in the Marquesas Islands, he and a shipmate deserted. The two men headed inland until they came to the lovely valley of the Typees, a Polynesian tribe with a reputation as fierce cannibals. But the natives turned out to be gentle, charming hosts. Melville described his experiences with them in Typee.

Melville lived in the valley for about a month. He then joined another whaling ship, but he soon deserted it with other sailors in a semimutiny at Tahiti. After a few days in a local jail, Melville and a new friend began roaming the beautiful and unspoiled islands of Tahiti and Moorea. Melville described his life during these wanderings in the novel Omoo.

After short service on a third whaling ship, Melville landed at Hawaii, where he lived doing odd jobs. On Aug. 17, 1843, he enlisted as a seaman on the U.S. Navy frigate United States. He recounted his long voyage around Cape Horn in the novel White-Jacket. Melville arrived in Boston in October 1844. He was released from the Navy and headed home to Albany, his imagination overflowing with his adventures.

Melville wrote about his experiences so attractively that he soon became one of the most popular writers of his time. The books that made his reputation were Typee (1846); Omoo (1847); Mardi (1849), a complex allegorical romance set in the South Seas; Redburn (1849); and White-Jacket (1850).

Melville then began Moby-Dick, another “whaling voyage,” as he called it, similar to his successful travel books. He had almost completed the book when he met fellow author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne inspired him to radically revise the whaling documentary into a novel of both universal significance and literary complexity.

Moby-Dick; or The Whale (1851), on one level, is the story of the hunt for Moby Dick, a fierce white whale supposedly known to sailors of Melville’s time. Captain Ahab is the captain of the whaling ship Pequod. He has lost a leg in an earlier battle with Moby Dick, and he is determined to catch the whale. The novel brilliantly describes the dangerous and often violent life on a whaling ship, and it includes information on the whaling industry and a discussion of the nature of whales. On another level, Moby-Dick is a deeply symbolic story. The whale symbolizes the mysterious and complex force of the universe, and Captain Ahab represents the heroic struggle against the limiting and crippling constrictions that confront an intelligent person.

Melville’s popularity began to decline with the publication of his masterpiece. The novel, either ignored or misunderstood by critics and readers, damaged Melville’s reputation as a writer. When Melville followed Moby-Dick with the pessimistic and tragic novel Pierre (1853), his readers began to desert him, calling him either eccentric or mad. The public was ready to accept unusual and exciting adventures, but they did not want ironic, frightening exposures of the terrible double meanings in life.

Melville turned to writing short stories. Two of them, “Benito Cereno” and “Bartleby the Scrivener,” rank as classics. But the haunting and disturbing question of the meaning of life that hovered over the stories also displeased the public. In 1855, Melville published Israel Potter, a novel set during the American Revolution (1775-1783). After The Confidence-Man (1856), a bitter satire on humanity, Melville gave up writing.

Melville worked as deputy inspector of customs in the Port of New York from 1866 until his retirement in 1885. He then began writing again. He died in 1891, leaving behind the manuscript of Billy Budd, Sailor. This short novel, first published in 1924 and considered Melville’s finest book after Moby-Dick, is a symbolic story about the clash between innocence and evil and between social forms and individual liberty.

The 1920′s marked the start of a Melville revival among critics and readers. By the 1940′s, Americans at last recognized his literary genius. His reputation has since spread throughout the world and continued to grow.