5/24/2023 0 Comments Hershel parker melville![]() ![]() His work corrects two of the most pernicious misconceptions about Melville perpetuated by earlier critics: that he repudiated fiction writing after Pierre, and that he hadn’t begun writing poetry (let alone had a book of poems ready for publication) as early as 1860. Here Parker, the dean of Melville studies, gives a compelling, in-depth account of how one of America’s greatest writers grew into the vocation of a poet. As Hershel Parker demonstrates in this book, Melville was steeped in poetry long before he called himself a poet. And yet, the reviewer went on: “Few books which professedly deal in metaphysics, or claim the parentage of the muses, contain as much true philosophy and as much genuine poetry as the tale of the Pequod's whaling expedition.” A decade and a half before surprising the world with a book of Civil War poetry, Melville was already confident of what was “poetic” in his prose. “Who would have looked for philosophy in whales, or for poetry in blubber?” the London John Bull remarked in October of 1851. ![]()
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