Melville

[herm melville]

All,

  I have been asked about my knowledge of Melville. The answer is Melville deep. Or so I thought. In years past I had read Clarel probably twice, but not significantly, just enough to get a sense of it. How uneducated I was and am.

  Reading Clarel closely has been a revelation, although we did not read the first three sections closely enough. What is needed is a year long (or no time limit) investigation into the poem very meticulously. There is more here that needs to be tied together, There are patterns that need to be unraveled. There is more to the connection of Vine and Hawthorne,

  Bezanson's notes are superb, but he misses some things, like the magic spell. This topic needs some investigation, although it is probably no more than a wild goose chase. However, John Dee, Agrippa, or the Kaballah might be worth exploring. All research has blind alleys. But  something might come from the blind.   

   The same can be done with Moby-Dick, Pierre, The Confidence-Man, some of the short stories, and perhaps even Billy Budd. The opening of Melville is just beginning.

John Gretchko