Herman Melville

Chronology (Adapted from Blooms Herman Melville in bibliography)

1826 Melville attends the New York Male High School.
18301832 Allan Melvilles importing business fails, and he moves the family to
Albany. Herman becomes a student at the Albany Academy until his fathers
death in 1832. Then he works
at various jobs: a bank clerk, a helper on his brothers farm and an assistant in
his brothers fur factory and store.
18411844 Melville leaves Fairhaven, Massachusetts as a sailor on the whaler
Acushnet, bound for the South Seas. Jumps ship in the Marquesas Islands,
where he lives among the natives for about a month. After a series of
adventures, travels home as a passenger on the frigate United States.
1846 Publishes Typee. Brother Gansevoort dies.
1847 Publishes Omoo. Marries Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of Chief Justice Lemuel
Shaw of Boston.
18471850 Melville tries to earn a living as a writer, producing occasional
articles and reviews.
1850 Publishes White-Jacket. Purchases Arrowhead, a farm near Pittsfield,
Massachusetts. Begins his friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lives in
nearby Lenox.
1851 Publishes Moby-Dick.
18531856 Writes stories and sketches for Putnams Monthly Magazine and
Harpers New Monthly
Magazine.
1856 The Piazza Tales published. Melville travels to Europe and the Near East
for his health.
18571860 Melville supports family by lectures on such topics as Statuary in
Rome, The South Seas and Travelling.
1863 Melville sells Arrowhead, and moves his family to NewYork City.
1866 Publishes a collection of poems, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.
1891 Melville dies on September 28.
1924 First publication of Billy Budd.

Literary reputation and critical reception

Died unknown by most: began as a popular travel writer and then fell into almost total neglect.
The reading public indifferent and hostile to his works during most of his literary career.
Rediscovered, reevaluated in the early decades of the twentieth century: the Melville Revival.
Regarded as one of the leading figures of the so-called American Renaissance.
Since the 1980s, feminist, African-American, new historical, and other contextual approaches
have explored questions of race, slavery, gender, class, sexuality, colonialism and religion, in his
works. Moreover, an unprecedented interest in his poetry which he valued poetry over his
fiction.
Influences on his writing; Historical and cultural context
. Well read; critics have examined the strong influence of the Bible and British authors such as
Shakespeare, Milton, and Spenser on his works.
His writing also affected by his relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthornes works
helped him to develop ( in his essay Hawthorne and His Mosses) the notion of blackness.
.Melvilles work influenced by the political, economic, and social issues of his day: The Civil
War, Transcendentalism and the notion of the noble savage.
Prominent themes, characters, symbols and images

.In his early narratives fascinated with "race." Concern with the relationship between savagery
and civilization.
.American democracy; American attitudes and values. Interested in the meaning of America.
.Paradise and the fall; innocence and corruption.
.God and religion: Melvilles ambivalent attitude toward God, religion.
.Humanitys relationship with nature. Related to his attitude toward God.
.Mans alienation and isolation in the modern world.
.Predominant characters: bachelors, foundlings and orphans and characters
without a past or a clear position in society. His use of western and non-Western characters.
.Color imagery (the contrast between dark and light), animal images, and tattoos and
bodily markings.

Bibliography
Bloom, Harold, ed. Herman Melville. New York: Blooms Literary Criticism, 2008.
Kelley Wynn. Herman Melville: An Introduction. Malden MA: Blackwell, 2008.
Lauter, Paul ed. A Companion to American Literature and Culture. Malden MA: WileyBlackwell, 2010.
Levine, Robert S. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1998.
Sterling, Laurie A. Blooms How to Write about Herman Melville. New York: Blooms Literary
Criticism, 2010.