Melville Society Extracts articles

Recent articles from Melville Society Extracts

Moby-Dick and John Singleton Copley's Watson and the Shark.
July 1, 2005... The visual arts played a significant role in Melville's writing, and especially in the crafting of Moby-Dick. Scholars have identified many of the artworks that inspired Melville during the writing of his whaling novel. (1) However, this exploration is a continuing enterprise. Following...

The scorpion's suicide: Claggart's death in Billy Budd.
July 1, 2005... There are people dedicated to evil in the world," writes Arthur Miller in the Introduction to his Collected Plays. "'Evil is not a mistake but a fact in itself.... I think now that one of the hidden weaknesses of our whole approach to dramatic psychology is our inability to face this fact--to...

Cetology now: a sketch for the twenty-first century.(NOTE)
July 1, 2005... In his "Cetology" chapter in Moby-Dick, Melville, through the narrative voice of Ishmael, seeks to take the measure of whales of all sizes and dispositions. Tacking away from the ready book-learning categories of Cuvier and Linnaeus and the emergent conventions of biology, Ishmael names the...

Ala 2005--Boston transgression, crime, and punishment in Melville's works.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Many scholars, particularly those associated with the field of law and literature, have explicated the ways in which Melville's texts engage with historical and contemporary legal issues and reflect and refract his culture's interest in transgression and rehabilitation. After the republican...

"Herman Melville and the Spanish Inquisition".
July 1, 2005... A close reading of Melville reveals numerous allusions to the Spanish Inquisition. This paper argues that the Inquisition functions in Melville's work as a multi-faceted trope for despotic authority. It begins by highlighting the instrumental presence of the Inquisition in "Benito Cereno" and...