Melville is famous for exploiting and then casting off advisors. Perhaps they resemble the pilot fish in Herman Melville’s “The Maldive Shark.”
Tag Archives: Herman Melville
Like the Crocus Budding through the Snow
Melville’s “Clarel” wrestles with faith and doubt and whether science can be reconciled with religion. In the end, the poet tells us to look to the heart, a good Advent message.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Testament", Clarel, faith and doubt, science and religion, Wendell Berry Comments closed
Poetry Helped Feed Robert E. Lee Myth
Herman Melville and Julie Ward Howe, although anti-slavery, unfortunately wrote poems which helped mythologize Robert E. Lee, whose statues have become symbols of white supremacy. And indeed, Lee was a white supremacist.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Lee in the Capitol", "Robert E. Lee", Civil War, Julie Ward Howe, racism, white supremacism Comments closed
Bob Dylan, Gifted Storyteller
Bob Dylan, in his Nobel Acceptance Speech, made it clear that literary influences are as big in his song writing as musical influences.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Blowin' in the Wind", "Masters of War", All Quiet on the Western Front, Bob Dylan, Erich Maria Remarque, Homer, Moby Dick, Nobel prize, Odyssey Comments closed
2016’s Top Story–Trump, Trump, Trump
Looking back of 2016, I choose three posts that stood out to me, all dealing with Trump. One compares him to Satan inspiring the invasion of Earth by Sin and Death in “Paradise Lost.” The other two compare him to Herman Melville’s “Confidence Man” and to the narrator’s son in the Raymond Carver short story “Why, Honey?”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged 2016 presidential election, Confidence Man, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, John Milton, Raymond Carver, Why Honey? Paradise Lost Comments closed
Ahab Obsession and the Clintons
The right wing’s obsession with the Clinton has prompted one pundit to invoke Ahab’s obsession with Moby Dick.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump, Moby Dick Comments closed
On Forgetting Old Students
Sometimes as teachers we forget students that we impacted greatly. Thomas Hardy’s Jude learns this when he looks up his old teacher Phillotson.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Jude the Obscure, Moby Dick, teaching, Thomas Hardy Comments closed
Trump as Melville’s Confidence Man
Why, in the words of Nicholas Kristof, do we think of Hillary as “a slippery, compulsive liar” and Donald Trump as “a gutsy truth-teller.” Herman Melville gives us a compelling explanation in “The Confidence Man.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged 2016 presidential election, Confidence Man, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton Comments closed
