Herman Melville: An Anti- Transcendentalist Or Not

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his mother Maria Melville. “Apparently the older son Gansevoort who carried the mother's maiden name was distinctly her favorite.” (Edinger 7) This was a sense of alienation the Herman Melville felt from his mother. This was one of the first symbolists to the Biblical Ishamel.
In 1837 he shipped to Liverpool as a cabin boy. Upon returning to the U.S. he taught school and then sailed for the South Seas in 1841 on the whaler Acushnet. After an 18 month voyage he deserted the ship in the Marquesas Islands and with a companion lived for a month among the natives, who were cannibals. He escaped aboard an Australian trader, leaving it at Papeete, Tahiti, where he was imprisoned temporarily. He worked as a field laborer and then shipped to Honolulu, Hawaii, where in 1843 he enlisted as a seaman on the U.S. Navy frigate United States. After his discharge in 1844 he began to create novels out of his experiences and to take part in the literary life of Boston and New York City. ...

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such as the chapter about whales; and the more purely ornamental passages, such as the tale of the Tally-Ho, which can stand by themselves as short stories of merit. The work is invested with Ishmael's sense of profound wonder at his story, but nonetheless conveys full awareness that Ahab's quest can have but one end. And so it proves to be: Moby-Dick destroys the Pequod and all its crew save Ishmael. There is a certain streak of the supernatural being projected in the writings of Melville, as is amply obvious in Moby Dick. The story revolves around the idea of an awesome sea mammal, which drives the passions of revenge in one man and forces him to pursue a course of action which ...

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