Biography EssayHerman Melville, who died almost forgotten although he had once been a popular author and had left behind ten notable books of prose fiction and four of verse, has gathered increasing f...
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American author Herman Melville (1819-1891) is best known for his novel Moby-Dick. His work was a response, though often in a negative or ambivalent way, to the romantic movement that dominated Americ...
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"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see th...
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Herman Melville, who died almost forgotten although he had once been a popular author and had left behind ten notable books of prose fiction and four of verse, has gathered increasing fame, especially...
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"You must have plenty of sea-room to tell the truth in," wrote Herman Melville in Hawthorne the pseudonymous, two part review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) that he publish...
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Herman Melville drew upon his adventurous travels on sea and land for the primary materials of his greatest fiction and poetry. Out of his experiences in the merchant service (1839), the whaling indus...
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In the following excerpt, Gilman examines the parallels between Melville's early years and that of his fictional character, Wellingborough Redburn.
If the exposition of Melville's int...
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In the following essay, Mathewson asserts that Melville expanded Redburn into a full-length book by repeating and recycling elements from the first section into the novel's sections on Liverpoo...
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In the following essay, Hall discusses Melville's unconventional use of the maturation process and the construction of individual identity in Redburn.
Redburn (1849) is the closest Melville ...
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In the following essay, Rowe discusses Redburn's handling of the conflict between capitalism and social justice in the Jacksonian period.
Among the many conflicts which characterize American...
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In the following excerpt, Robillard discusses Melville's linking of landscape and seascape descriptions with works of art through his character/narrator Wellingborough Redburn, who envisions th...
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In the following essay, Schroeter discusses the limitations of the mythic, initiation into evil interpretation of Redburn, claiming that there are important elements of tone and structure within the n...
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In the following essay, McCarthy examines Melville's treatment of Liverpool, London, and New York as centers of Anglo-American culture founded on private property, class difference, and social ...
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In the following essay, Bell examines Melville's treatment of initiation into the adult world as less involved in problems of innocence or good vs. evil than most critics assume; Bell's ...
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In the following essay, Haberstroh maintains that Redburn was written as a haven from his precarious emotional state following the publication of Mardi.
Redburn was written in part to help Melville...
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In the following essay, Lanzinger discusses Melville's disappointment and disenchantment with Europe as a legendary cultural mecca.
Although Herman Melville's fourth novel, Redburn: H...
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In the following essay, Pry contends that Melville's novel, centered on a theme of Christian brotherhood, is far more unified than many critics and readers assume.
Melville's critics ...
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In the following essay, Sten suggests that Melville's Wellingborough Redburn undergoes not a simple initiation over the course of the novel, but rather the far more complicated and lengthy proc...
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In the following essay, Press claims that Melville's presentation of the relationship between Europe and America in Redburn is far more complicated than the usual dichotomy between decadence an...
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Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Critical Essay by William H. Gilman
