U.53. The Novel, Short Story and Poetry in the USA. Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, and Walt Whitman

2. LITERARY BACKGROUND

• 19th century:

  • Romanticism (an era of individualism, naturalism, and exploration of the human mind) and publication of Lyrical Ballads, 1798.

  • America: that saw westward expansion, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, and industrialisation.

  • Melville and Poe → dealt with isolation, psychological conflict, fate and evil, Gothic symbolism and allegory.

  • Whitman → revolutionised American literature, innovative style and free verse, celebration of democracy and individualism. One of the founders of Modern American poetry.

3. HERMAN MELVILLE. 3.1. Life

• NYC:

  • Born in NYC, 1819 to a prosperous father who imported foreign goods (however struggled with financial difficulty)

  • Father died → Melville left school at 15 and worked as clerk, farmhand, and schoolteacher,

  • At 18 y/o, he became a merchant sailor on a voyage to Liverpool (marked his literature). Upon returning, he briefly sought opportunities in the west, but failed.

• The Pacific:

  • Melville joined the warship Acushnet, working on hard conditions, until he deserted the ship.

  • He spent weeks with the Typee people in the Marquesas Island

  • Then went to Tahiti, where he was briefly imprisoned.

  • Travelled to Hawaii and eventually enlisted the YUSNEIVI.

3. HERMAN MELVILLE. 3.2. Works. First… his pure adventure works.

• Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846):

  • This is his first published book, immediate success.

  • This is a travel narrative and adventure fiction

  • However, its autobiographical accuracy has been questioned

  • Remarkable for its vivid characterisation and creation of suspense.

• Omoo (1847):

  • Set in Tahiti

  • Satirises colonialism and discusses Christian missionary activities.

3. HERMAN MELVILLE. 3.2. Works. First… his more psychological works

• Mardi (1849) → utilises the sea voyage as a symbol for human's search for the truth.

• Redburn (1849) → draws upon his journey to Liverpool

• White Jacket (1850) → based on his experience aboard US Navy frigate United States.

• Moby-Dick (1851) [his masterpiece] ///// and Pierre (1852) → dark psychological novel on family, guilt, and conflict.

3. HERMAN MELVILLE. 3.2. Works. First… his Piazza Tales and Billy Budd Sailor.

• Piazza Tales (1856):

  • Collection of short stories which famously include…

  • Bartleby, the Scrivener → explain plot // on alienation, passive resistance, bureaucracy, “I would prefer not to”.

  • Benito Cereno → mysterious encounter between Captain Amasa Delano and a distressed Spanish slave. On racial prejudice and moral blindness

• Billy Budd Sailor (1924):

  • Unfinished at the time of his death,

  • Story of a young sailor impressed from a merchant ship into British warship Bellipotent.

  • On conflict between moral laws and military discipline.

3. HERMAN MELVILLE. 3.2. Works. Did he produce any poetry?

Yes indeed, in fact, his most remarkable work is Clarel, A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (1876).

Delves into:

• Falasteen

• Religion and faith

• Spiritual uncertainty of the modern world.

3. HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891). 3.3. Moby-Dick

• Plot

• Ahab and the Whale:

  • Critics have tried to understand its symbolic meaning. Some argue that Ahab is a heroic figure who goes against the tides, but others have argued that he represents destructive pride and obsession.

• Moby-Dick:

  • Follows an adventure narrative

  • Uses Shakespearean drama conventions

  • Resorts to Biblical language (Jonah and the whale and its multiple allegories)

  • Influenced by N. Hawthorne, whom Melville met in 1850 and to whom he dedicated the story.

• Not acclaimed until many, many years later, more specifically, until the MELVILLE REVIVAL.

4. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 4.1. Life. Childhood.

• Born in Boston, MA (1809), he is renowned for being a poet, playwright, essayist, short novel writer, and literary critic.

• His father abandoned him.

• His mother, actress Eliza Poe, died of tuberculosis.

• He was taken to the Allan family house, where he lived with John and Frances.

• Relationship with Frances → a loving one

• Relationship with John → troubled and strained

4. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 4.1. Life. Education.

• Funded by John, he attended Virginia University, but quit because of debt and gambling issues.

• He enlisted in the US Army (more specifically US Military Academy at West Point)

• Left in 1831.

4. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 4.1. Life. Early literary career.

• Worked as an editor for magazines and published poetry, essays, short stories, and reviews

• Deeply admired for his literary criticism

• Dreamt of founding his own magazine, The Stylus, but his plans never saw the light.

4. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 4.1. Life. Marriage and death

• Married his 13yo cousin, Virginia Poe (née Clemm), whom he loved dearly.

• She passed away of tuberculosis at the age of 24, which left a profound wound in Poe and whose emotional health deteriorated

• He was found in October, 1849, unconscious in the streets of Baltimore, MD. He passed away days later.

4. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 4.1. Life. Reputation.

• Poe’s reputation differed between the US and Europe.

• In Europe, he was acclaimed by Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé for his originality. They translated some of his works.

• In the US, 19th-century critics believed that Poe’s stories were “eccentric”, and “overly sensational”.

• However, he is today considered one of the most important figures of American literature, the GOAT.

4. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 4.2. Poetry.

• Though his success is attributed primarily to his short stories, Poe considered himself a poet.

• He believed in the fact that poetry should pursue beauty above anything else.

• Many of his poems reflect Romantic and Platonic ideals.

4. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 4.2. Poetry. Poems

• First poem ever: Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), written while Poe was in the US Army.

• Al Aaraf (1829) → Islamic tradition. A place of perpetual beauty.

• Sonnet To-Science → critic on excessive rationalism.

• Poems (volume) (1831), which contained:

  • To Helen → idealised classical beauty

  • Israfel

  • Lenore

• The Raven and Other Poems (1845) → established his reputation, (explain plot).

• The Philosophy of Composition (essay)

• Annabel Lee

4. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 4.3. Tales. His two collections of tales

• Tales of HORROR → explore fear, madness, death, the supernatural

• Tales of RATIOCINATION → logical reasoning, analytical problem solving, impossible mysteries.

4. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 4.3. Tales. Tales of Horror.

• Murder stories:

  • The Black Cat (on guilt, alcoholism, and cruelty)

  • The Cask of Amontillado (notable for its atmosphere, use of irony, and psychological portrayal of revenge).

[In both TBC, TCA, he leaves a door open to understand the murderers’ perspective]

• Stories of love and death:

  • Ligeia (is it a product of the narrator’s grief and hallucination???? left to interpretation)

• Stories of death:

  • The Fall of the House of Usher (on Gothic atmosphere, psychological decay, and family decline)

  • The Masque of the Red Death (on the inevitability of death despite the wealth)

4. EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 4.3. Tales. Tales of Ratiocination.

• The Murders in the Rue Morgue (established conventions on detective tales)

• The Mystery of Marie Roget (one of the first who wrote fiction inspired by a real crime case)

• The Purloined Letter (on intelligence, imagination, and psychological insight over physical investigation)

• The Gold Bug (while not a part of any of the two collections, illustrates Poe’s obsession with puzzle solving and treasure hunting)

5. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). 5.1. Life

• Born Long Island, NY

• Trained as printer, teacher, journalist, newspaper editor

• Controversial for his democratic ideals and unconventional writing style (free verse, frank treatment of human body)

• Wrote his most famous work Leaves of Grass (1885)

• Volunteered as a nurse in the Civil War → Drum-Traps (1865) & O Captain! My Captain! and elegies on Lincoln’s assassination.

• Health declined 1870s after a stroke → the Deathbed Edition → revised old works and final revision of LoG.

• Died Camden, NJ, 1892.

5. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). 5.1. Life. Which transformative experience would help Whitman transform American literature?

• After his trip to New Orelans in 1848.

5. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). 5.1. Life. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

• One of the most important figures of American Romanticisim

• Leading representative of the Transcendentalist movement

• Nature and Self-Reliance → stood for advocacy of individual freedom, which inspired Whitman.

5. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). 5.1. Life. What is transcendentalism?

• Movement that derives from Romanticism and is opposed to rationalism, specifically from the Enlightenment.

• Centred around the fact that people and nature aren’t inherently bad, it is the institutions that corrupt them.

• Strong on personal independency and agency

5. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). 5.1. Life. What is reflected in Whitman’s poetry?

• How he lived through the…

  • Abolition of slavery

  • Civil War and Assassination of Lincoln

  • Rapid growth of USA as an industrial power

• His beliefs on:

  • Equality AND democracy

  • Freedom AND dignity

  • Creating an American poetry that departed from European tradition

• His language was…

  • Of everyday Americans

  • Colloquial expressions

  • Free verse

  • Use of technical vocab (place names, words from different languages…)

5. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). 5.2. Works. Leaves of Grass (1855)

• Whitman’s masterpiece

• Revised and expanded throughout his life, especially in the Deathbed Edition.

• Best known for:

  • Song of Myself

  • I Sing the Body Electric

  • Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

  • When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

5. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). 5.2. Works. Leaves of Grass (1855). Song of Myself.

• His greatest, longest poem

• Combines autobiography with philosophical reflection

• Celebrates the unity of humanity and nature and the power of the individual

• The ‘self’ is not simply Whitman, but a UNIVERSAL SELF

• Poem begins with poet observing the world around him before embarking on a journey through countless human experiences.

5. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). 5.2. Works. Leaves of Grass (1855). Song of Myself. Iconic quote?

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I contain multitudes.”

5. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). 5.2. Works. Leaves of Grass (1855). Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

• Departs from a childhood memory of Whitman’s. He believed this memory awakened his vocation.

• His youth by the seashore, speaker witnesses the loss of 1 bird out of 2 mockingbirds

• Surviving bird song is a:

  • Meditation of loss and death, love, and memory

  • Leads young poet to discover the relationship between suffering AND artistic creation

5. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892). 5.2. Works. Leaves of Grass (1855). When Lilacs Last on a Dooryard Bloom’d.

• Written after Lincoln’s assassination. It’s an ELEGY.

• Built around 3 central symbols:

  • (1) Lincoln’s funeral across the nation

  • (2) The sprig of lilac offered by the poet as a tribute

  • The hermit thrush

• AND THE EVENING STAR

• These symbols transform personal grief into a universal meditation on loss and renewal.