Ishmael the Poet:
Moby-Dick as a Romance, the Second Voyage
In Chapter 102 (“A Bower in the Arsacides”) of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851), Ishmael casuall y discl oses a curious fact. When Ishmael remembers his experi ence of m eas uring a sperm whal e in an island called Arsacides , he does not hesitat e to reveal t he fact that the whale’s
dimensions are tattooed on his ri ght arm and that his bod y “was crowded for space”:
The skeleton dimensi ons I shall now proceed to s et down are copied verbatim from m y ri ght arm, where I had them t attooed;
as in m y wild wanderings at that period, t here was no other secure wa y of pres erving s uch valuable s t atistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then composing—at least, what unt attooed part s might rem ain — I did not troubl e m ysel f with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should i nches at all ent er int o a congeni al adm easurement of the whale. (MD 451; emphasis added)
Although the pass age has passed almost unnoticed, it is am azing that Ishmael’s whole body is “tattooed” and that he was composing a poem.
While the exact tim e of reference rem ains hidden, the sudden disclosure of a profoundl y curi ous past strongl y suggests that Ishm ael has the
qualifications of a poet. One of the few s cholars who have ever referred to the pass age, Matthew Cordova Frankel , points out that the character of
“Ishmael as a poetic subject” ( Frankel 141) emerges in the scene. He discusses Ishmael’s plans to inscribe poems on his body in light of his composition of the text itself, by associating the poems with Ishmael’s view on the act of writing, which can be seen i n Chapter 32 (“Cet ology”): “God keep m e from ever completing an yt hing. This whole book is but a
draught—na y, but the draught of a draught” (MD 145). In short, “the composition refers s elf -reflexivel y to an unwritten piece pres erved in an alwa ys unfinished pr ocess ” (Frankel 141).1 Then wh y does Melville give Ishmael the status of “a poetic subject”? How does Ishmael as “a poetic subject” use language? In what respects is his use of language characteristic of a poet? Unfortunatel y, Frankel does not offer an y co nvincing answers to these questions.
This chapter examines these questions in t he context of genre and language. In order to veri f y the possibility that Ishm ael is qualified as a poet, fi rst of all, I would like, after looki ng at previous studies on Melville’s poetical aspects, to focus on some letters in order t o redefine Melville’s romance, which appears to be linked with poetry in his mind.
Second, b y examining the relation between Mardi (1849) and Moby-Dick, I demonstrate what he does with Moby-Di ck and his preference for a romance over a novel.2 Finall y, I will show the poetical fi gure of Ishm ael b y
discussing his cons ci ousness of bei ng a poet and his use of poetical language. Through these examina tions, I would like to maintai n that the figure of Ishmael, who becomes monophonic as well as omni present, represents a narrative whi ch Melvill e was tr ying to produce.
Previous Studies on Melville’s Poetics: Prose or Verse
Scholars have evaluated Melville’s poetical talent in two ways so far:
one wa y is focusing on his later poetr y from Battle-Pi eces and Aspects of the War (1866) to Ti moleon (1891).3 For example, Lawrence Buell, who compares the war poetr y of Whitman and Melville, regards the Civil War as a crucial element that “shaped Melville’s mature poetic persona” (138 –41, 148–49). S cholars such as Robert Penn Warren and Stanton Garner also argue that the C ivil War made Melvill e a poet. Even recentl y, there is a strong tendenc y to praise Battl e-Pi eces.4
The other wa y is to focus on poetic aspect s in his pros e fi ctions.
William C. Spengem ann, M atthew Cordova Frankel, and Hers hel Parker hold the s ame vi ew t hat Melvill e used poetical l anguage from the ver y beginning of his creative career. For exam ple, Parke r admi res Melville’s poetic qualities in Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), and Mardi (1849), as t he reviewers of Melville’s own day noted and praised . He conspicuously proffers the evidence that Melvill e had strong interest in poetry even in Typee (Parker, The Making of the Poet 138).5 It cannot be deni ed that Melville had al read y developed poetr y i n his prose fictions. C onsidering that Melville first turned to writing poetr y in Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, the Civil War undoubtedl y had a great influence on Melville’s turning toward writi ng vers e. Yet it was onl y a change of form. The war stimulated his imagi nation to create vers e, but it is hi ghl y likel y that he had been reflecting on poetr y as a useful fo rm of a narrative in the earl y years of his career as a writ er.
For example, among Melville’s prose fictions, scholars have sensed
the poeti cal qualities of Father Mapple and Ahab in Moby -Di ck. In the case of Father Mapple, Buell highly evaluates “The Ribs and Terrors of the Whale,” a hymn he sings after offering a prayer in Chapter 9 (“The
Sermon”), as well as “Billy in the Darbies,” a verse inserted at the end of Billy Budd (posthum ousl y published i n 1924) (Buell 138). As for Ahab, F. O.
Matthiess en arran ged Ahab’s soliloqu y in Chapter 36 (“The Quarter Deck”) as blank verse in order to offer an example of Shakespeare’s influence on Melville:
But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, That thing unsa ys itself. There are men From whom warm words are sm all indi gnit y.
I m eant not to incense thee. Let it go.
Look! s ee yonder Turkish cheeks of s pott ed tawn — Living, breathing pictures painted b y the sun.
The Pagan l eopards —the unrecking and
Unwors hipping things, that live; and s eek, and give
No reasons for the t orrid life the y feel ! (Matthiess en 426) Matthiess en draws our att ention to its degree of perfection b y sa ying that
“there are some clumsy sequences” (Matthiessen 426). Nevertheless, the passage shows that Melville undoubtedl y developed poeti cal language in Moby-Dick. Actuall y, Melville had thought that it was possible to write poetr y either in pros e or in verse, as he writes in his lit erar y essay,
“Hawthorne and His Mosses”:
For poets (whether i n prose or verse), being painters of Nature, are like their brethren of the pencil, the true port rait -paint er, who, in the multitude of likeness to be sketched, do not
invari abl y omit thei r own; and in all hi gh instances, the y pain t them without vanit y, though, at times, wit h a lurking something, that would t ake several pages to properl y define. (249 ;
emphasis added )
Melville thus us es the metaphor of painti ng to explain his idea of poetr y.
The fi rst line of the passage clearl y indi cates that the use of verse is not necessar y for one to be called a poet. Alt hough critics have not paid
suffi cient attention t o this pass age, it is natural that M elville expresses his idea of poet r y in an essa y on art, for Melvi lle wrote it after being in fluenced by Shakespeare, and, as Matthi essen ment ioned, it can be s aid that he
learned about the dramatic capacities of blank verse and about poetr y from Shakespeare and Mil ton in order to t reat his subject m atter, the white whale (Matthiess en 421 –31).
These examples reveal that Melvill e had a preoccupation with poet r y before writing verse, but what are the charact eristi cs of his poetr y in pros e?
What is the difference between the poetics of Melville’s later poetry and that of his pros e fi cti ons? Wher eas Mel ville’s poet r y in his verse is
exemplified by “his use of rhymed octosyllables, his favorite meter” (Buell 151), his poetr y in prose is not alwa ys rel ated to t echniques s uch as m eter.
Melville’s poetry is associated with romance in his mind, and thi s seems to be the foundation for his poetics of prose. To prove this h ypothesis, it is necessary to examine Hawthorne’s principle of romance, which Melville fulfills.
Romance: In the Case of Hawthorne and Melville
In the “Preface” of T he House of the Seve n Gables (1851), Hawthorne
confi rms the distinct ion between a novel and a rom ance:
When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardl y be observed that he wis hes to cl aim a certai n latitude, both as to its fashion and mat er ial, which he would not have f elt himself entitled to assume, had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presum ed to aim at a ver y minut e fidelit y, not m erel y t o the possibl e, but to the probabl e and ordinar y cours e of m an's experience. The former―while, as a work of art, it must rigidl y subject itself t o laws, and while it sins unpardonabl y, so far as it m a y swerve aside from the trut h of the human heart―has fairly a right t o present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writ er's own choosing or creation. (1 ; emphasis added )
What Hawthorne explains here is that w hi le a “novel” is dependent on facts or human experience, a “romance” is allowed “ a certain latitude” both as to
“its fashion and material,” and thereby its author can describe “the truth of the human heart” more effectively than in a “novel.” Critics have noted this aspect of a rom ance as a si gni ficant principle in addition to the definition of a romance, the meeting ground of the actual and the imaginary, in “The Custom-Hous e” of T he Scarlet Lett er (1850). However, Hawthorne adds:
“The point of view in which this Tale [The Hous e of the Seven Gables] comes under the Romantic def inition li es in the attempt to connect a b y-gone time with the ver y Present that is flitting awa y from us” (2). Of course, this aspect is correl ated with the problem of how much an author is dependent on his or her “experience” of the past in using imagina tion to describe “the truth of the human heart.” Whether it is a rambling
reminiscence or confronting the bitter pas t face to face, a romance gives meaning to the past. It mi ght also involve stirring up nostal gi a because reminiscence is, more or l ess, a vi carious experience. This is a principle of a romance which Hawthorne does not emphasize in “The Custom -House.”
To reconsider the definition of a romance in this context enabl es us to recognize the import ant ess ence.
Melville’s romance is basically dependen t on Hawthorne’s. It is quite likel y that Moby-Di ck directl y reflects the ess ence of Hawthorne’s idea, especiall y since M el ville read The Hous e of Seven Gables, which appeared in print on April 9, 1851, when Melvill e was still revising Moby-Di ck.6 However, as m entioned in Chapt er 1, Mel ville had explained his own idea of a rom ance ahead of Hawthorne in a l etter to J ohn Murra y on Ma y 25, 1848, when M elville was working on his third novel Mardi (1849):
I have long thought t hat Pol ynisia furnished a great deal of ri ch poetical mat erial that has never been employed hitherto in works of fancy; and which t o bring out s uitabl y, requi red onl y that pl a y of freedom & inventi on accorded onl y to t he Romancer & poe t ….
My romance I assure you is no dish water nor its model borrowed from the Circulating Library. It is somethi ng new I assure you, &
ori ginal i f nothing m ore. But I can give you no adequate idea, of it. You must see it for yoursel f. —Onl y forbear to prejud ge it. — It opens like a t rue narrative —like Omoo for example, on s hip board— & t he romance & poetry of the thing thence grow
continuousl y, till it becom es a stor y wild enough I ass ure you &
with a meaning too. (Melville, Correspondence 106; emphasis added)
From the beginning of the pass age, we can notice t hat M elville was sensitive to “poetical material” even when writing Mardi. This letter is crucial evidence that Melville was consci ous of poetr y in his earl y writings.
Additionall y, the l ett er mi ght even tel l us wh y Melvill e had been apt to avoid choosing Am erica as a cent ral setting in his pros e fictions. He thought that America was short of “poetical material” and that a more congenial soil and spiritual clim ate were to be found in t he sea or Paci fic isl and s.
The most important t hing in the l etter, however, is that Melvil le appears to identif y romance with poetr y. In regard to this poi nt, Parker recognizes “a higher form of literature” in Melville’s way of using the phrase “the romance & poetry”:
In Melvill e’s usages, the “poet ” and the “poetic” are not
associ ated with the metrical activit y of verse -maki ng but evoke the Romantic writer ’s liberated consciousness in bold pursuit of the wild, the strange, the exotic. Rom ance and poetr y were s ynon ymous —the y were imaginative, not factual and not
commonplace, and they were associated in Melville’s mind with a hi gher form of literature than factual (and parti all y
fictionalized) travel and adventure narrati ve. (P arker , The Making of the Poet 14)
Parker points out that Melville is sa ying romance and poet r y are
“synonymous.” In fact, the juxtaposition of the words “romance” and
“poetry” (or “romancer” and “poet”) clearly shows how closely they are linked in Melville’s imagination. However, because M elville is saying that
“poetical material” was what needs to be “employed” in works of fancy, the two must be treated separately. Melville claims that “poetry” is only
“material,” but his task was to write “poetical material” properly in “works of fancy,” that is, romance. “Poetry” and “romance” are not identical but the y are complem ent ar y elem ents that contribute to the art of telling the truth. This is the reason wh y a rom ance can be a foundation for poet ry.
Melville had a keen sensitivit y to what is poet ical and he tri ed to connect it with rom ance. Here is an important distinction between romance in Melvill e and Hawthorne.
In this way, Melville was not s o much concerned with form (prose or vers e) as with m ateri al, st yl e, or m ethod. It was of the utmost i m portance to him to employ “poetical material” in “works of fancy.” The poetical
language in a rom ance never disturbs the developm ent of the s tory, never loses its meanings, but “grows” and connects “a by -gone time with the very Present that is flitting awa y.” Although M elville mi ght not us e the word
“romance” in the same way as Hawthorne, reading Moby-Dick from this perspective enabl es us to interpret it in quite a di fferent wa y: Is hmael’s language has an elasticity that leads to telling “the truth of the h uman heart,”
and a rom ance provi des the groundwork for his us e of poetical language in Moby-Dick.
Accordingly, in order to evaluate Melville’s poetical aspects, we must abandon the choice between prose and verse. Inst ead, we must consider how his poetical imaginat ion developed through his writing and how Melville was wrestl ed with the probl em of writing poetr y in rom ance until
Moby-Dick took form. This method t o capture poetical aspect s of Melvill e’s
“inner condition” is similar to what F. R. Leavis once a pplied so as to call Henry James a “poet -novelist.” When referring to Henr y J ames as a
“poet-novelist,” Leavis has in mind “a constant profound pondering of the
nature of civilized societ y and of the possibilit y of imagining a finer civilization than an y h e knew” (Leavis 128).7 This obs ervation offers a perspective from whi ch we should consider Melville ’s use of poetr y as a means to conve y a personal experience of the marginalized Other in the civilized modern age.
Melville’s Return to Romance: From Mardi (1849) to Moby-Dick (1851)
After the failure of Mardi, M elville changed his st yl e of writi ng in Redburn (1849), aiming at success .8 After the turn from Mardi to Redburn, however, M elville found himself i n agony, as can be s een in hi s letters or
“Hawthorne and His Mosses.” For example, Michael T. Gilmore writes that the essay shows “the opposition between his democratic convictions and his need to writ e for the democratic public” (52). Gilmore confi rm s that the essay illustrates how “Melville’s patriotic effusions coexist with a deep skepticism about the mass reading public and its aptitude for appreciating excellence” (58). Indeed it is natural that Melville experienced t he conflict between his motivati ons of writing and the marketpl ace especi all y becaus e of the failure of Mardi. However, I would rather emphasize another
discrepanc y that Mel ville faced when com posing Moby-Dick, t hat is, the choice bet ween writi ng a novel o r a romance.
The inner confli ct which Melvill e could not avoid at that tim e is hinted at in his letter to Hawthorne in 1851: “What I feel most moved to write, that is banned, —it will not pa y. Yet , altogether, write the other wa y I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all m y books are botches.”
(Melville, Correspondence 191; it alics in ori ginal). “What I feel most
moved to write” can be thought of as Mardi, but M elville knew that romance, unlike an autobiographical novel, would not pa y. This l etter cl earl y shows that Melville reluctantly abandoned what he felt “most moved to write” for the sake of succeeding, but that he still had a strong interest in writing a romance like Mardi. After writing Redbur n and White Jacket (1849), he turned to a romance ag ain. This is wh y Mardi has been considered a work that leads to Moby -Dick. While Redburn and White Jackets are novels, Mardi and Moby-Dick are romances .
When this change in direction bet ween White-Jacket and Moby-Dick is considered in the context of Melvil le’s preference for a romance, we can notice that Melvill e had a certain convi ct ion that rom ance can function as a device quite essential to “the truth of the human heart.” When Melville confesses that he cannot write “the other wa y” even though “it will n ot pa y,”
it shows that his irresistible urge to return to Mardi was strengthened b y reading Hawthorne and Shakespeare as well as by writing “Hawthorne and His Mosses.” In this sense, it is a greater turn in direction than it appears.
After finishing Redburn and White -Jacket, while M elville advanced to Moby-Dick on the surface, he turned back to Mardi in his inmost heart. This is what happened to Melville between White-Jacket and Moby-Dick.
In a l etter to an Engl ish editor Ri chard Bentle y on J une 27, 1850, Melville explains about the source of Moby-Di ck: “The book is a romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends in the Southern Sperm Whal e Fisheries, and illustrated by the author ’s own personal experience, of two years & more, as a harpooner” (Cor respondence 163). M elville wrote this letter on June 27, 1850 when he still did not start revising the book. The use of the words “a romance of adventure” (not “an adventure”) indicates th at it
had remained Melville’s preoccupation to write “poetical material” in a romance as I have al read y mentioned earl ier.
Precis el y because of this retrogression, as Melville hims elf fel t, Moby-Dick has been regarded as a bot ch, both in respect of genre a nd of theme. Thus, his inner struggle over the act of writing primaril y caus ed the multi-la yered aspects of Moby-Dick, and i t has been long evaluated as a highl y pol yphoni c novel. However, when re -reading Moby-Dick as a
romance in which Is hmael connects “a b y-gone tim e with the ver y Pres ent that is flitting away,” we find that he intersperses many passages that show his figure as “a poetic subject” in the fabric of Moby-Di ck.
Ishmael’s Consciousness of Being a Poet
As I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, a pass age in Chapter 102 implies the connection between the figure of Ishmael as “a poetic subject” and the act of writing. In addition, it is noteworthy that Ishmael shows his constant concern with poetr y t hroughout the text. For example, Is hmael shows his idea of the business of whaling in Chapter 24 (“The Advocate”):
As Queequeg and I are now fairl y embarked in this business of whaling; and as this business of whaling has somehow come t o be regarded among l andsmen as a rather unpoetical and
disreput able pursuit; therefore, I am all anxiet y to convince ye, ye landsm en, of the i njustice hereb y done to us hunters of whales . (MD 108; em phasis added ).
Ishmael’s recognition that the “business of whaling” is “poetical” can be regarded as an essent ial principle for his pursuit of a white whale and for