Herman Melville was born on August 1, 1819, in New York, United States. He is a famous American novelist, essayist and poet.
Biography and Career :
He was born into a well-of, religious New York family.
Melville's childhood ended to soon because of his family's problems: when he was ten, his father's business failed and this drove his father to madness, and, then, to death. Poverty made him leave school at the age of 15. Then, he worked as a clerk, a farmer and a teacher, before becoming a cabin boy on a ship.
Melville's shipboard experience served as a basis for his autobiographical novel "Redburn", a novel in which the hero was more unhappy than Melville.
In 1841 Melville went to the South Seas on a whaling ship, where he gained the information about whales, inform
ation used in "Moby-Dick". A year later, in 1842, together with a companion, he jumped ship at Nuku Hiva in the Marquises Islands.
At the age of 25, Melville seemed no closer to finding a career than four years before. Except for letters published in a local newspaper, he showed no interest in writing. So, as he recounted his adventures for his family, they urged him to write the tales down. This way, he discovered his calling.
As Melville told his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne: "From my twenty-fifth year I date my life". And he began drawing on his sea adventures in the novels: "Typee" (1846), "Omoo" (1847), "Redburn" (1849), "White Jacket" (1850). But when he began writing philosophical and symbolic works, his popularity began to wane. From complex novels such as "Moby-Dick", "Pierre" (1852) and "The Confidence Man" (1857), Melville turned to poetry. He also wrote a novelette "Billy Budd", which he completed just before his death.
When moving to the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, Melville met Nathaniel Hawthorne, already famous as the author of "The Scarlet Letter". In Hawthorne, Melville seemed to find a kind spirit, a man who had fulfilled himself writing the kind of dark, complex books that Melville wanted to write. Maybe he gave Melville the courage to achieve his ambitious.
In Melville's most famous book "Moby-Dick", we can find the influence of many works of literature: the Bible, the plays of Shakespeare, Homer's Odyssey. But certainly, the book's real power comes from the doubts and fears of Melville's own life.
Melville's "Moby-Dick" is a book crowded with doubts, the fitting product of a man who, in Hawthorne's words, could neither believe in anything "nor be comfortable in his disbelief".
"Moby-Dick" is maybe the finest work of American literature, but it did not sell well enough for Melville to support his wife and children. In spite of all this, he hated taking money from richer relatives:" Dollars damn me", he told Hawthorne angrily. "What I feel most moved to write, that is banned, - and it will not pay. Yet altogether write the other way, I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches".
Melville passed away, on September 28, 1891. But only in the 1920s, with the publication of the first biography of Melville and the discovery of the manuscript of "Billy Budd", was Melville's greatness appreciated.
Important Writings :
Novels :
- Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846)
- Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847)
- Mardi: And a Voyage Thither (1849)
- Redburn: His First Voyage (1849)
- White-Jacket: or, The World in a Man-of-War (1850)
- Moby-Dick (1851)
- Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852)
- Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855)
- The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857)
- Billy Budd, Sailor: An Inside Narrative (1924)
- Isle of the Cross (lost)
Quotes :
- "He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great."
- "The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage; its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion."
- "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method."
Herman Melville Image : tfd.com
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