Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Gillian Brown

Critical Essay by Gillian Brown

SOURCE: “Anti-Sentimentalism and Authorship in Pierre,” in Domestic Individualism: Imagining Self in Nineteenth-Century America, University of California Press, 1990, pp. 135-69.

In the following essay, Brown interprets Pierre as Melville's parody and critique of the typical sentimental domestic novel of his day, focusing on the author's handling of the role of the individual in American society.

Seventeen books into the narrative of Pierre; or, The Ambiguities, Melville abandons the chronology of Pierre's family history—the stuff of the sentimental novel—to announce: “I write precisely as I please.”¹ This declaration of literary individualism heralds a satirical discussion of “Young America in Literature,” as typified by “the juvenile author” of “that delightful love-sonnet, entitled ‘The Tropical Summer’” (245). We now learn that Pierre has enjoyed some success as the author of this sentimental sonnet and other “gemmed little sketches of thought and fancy” (245).

The switch from the parodic Glendinning family plot to...
(read more)