SOURCE: “Style and Tone in Melville's Pierre,” in ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, No. 60, Summer, 1970, pp. 76-86.

In the following essay, Holder discusses the shifts in narrative tone, attitude, and mood in Pierre, conceding that, in the end, there is little to account for the novel's contradictions and fragments.

“It is hard always to be sure of its intention. …” 

F. O. Matthiessen on Pierre

The stylistic variety of Moby Dick has generally been regarded as one of that book's glories, a source of wonder and delight. If critics have differed in their interpretations, they have at least shared a common admiration for Moby Dick's richness. With Pierre, however, the shifts in style¹ have occasioned not only radical disagreements among Melville critics, but unhappy bewilderment and irritation as well. In addition to the puzzlement over the novel's stylistic changes, there exists considerable doubt about what Melville...