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Herman Melville[a] (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. His best known works include Typee (1846), a romantic account of his experiences in Polynesian life, and his whaling novel Moby-Dick (1851). His work was almost forgotten during his last 30 years.
His writing draws on his experience at sea as a common sailor, exploration of literature and philosophy, and engagement in the contradictions of American society in a period of rapid change. He developed a complex, baroque style; the vocabulary is rich and original, a strong sense of rhythm infuses the elaborate sentences, the imagery is often mystical or ironic, and the abundance of allusion extends to biblical scripture, myth, philosophy, literature, and the visual arts.
Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a merchant in French dry goods and his wife. His formal education ended abruptly after his father died in 1832, as this left the family in financial straits. He briefly became a schoolteacher before he took to sea in 1839 as a sailor on a merchant ship. In 1840, he signed aboard the whaler Acushnet for his first whaling voyage but jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. He returned to Boston in 1844 after further adventures.
His first book was Typee (1846), a highly romanticized account of his life among Polynesians. It became such a best-seller that he wrote the sequel Omoo (1847). These successes gave him the financial basis to marry Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of a prominent Boston family, but the success proved hard to sustain. His first novel that was not based on his own experiences was Mardi (1849), a sea narrative that develops into a philosophical allegory—but it was not well received. He received warmer reviews for Redburn (1849), a story of life on a merchant ship, and his 1850 description of the harsh life aboard a man-of-war in White-Jacket, but they did not provide financial security.
In August 1850, Melville moved his growing family to Arrowhead, a farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he established a profound but short-lived friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom he dedicated Moby-Dick. This novel was another commercial failure, published to mixed reviews. Melville's career as a popular author effectively ended with the cool reception of Pierre (1852), in part a satirical portrait of the literary culture at the time. His Revolutionary War novel Israel Potter appeared in 1855.
From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines, most notably "Bartleby, the Scrivener" (1853), "The Encantadas" (1854), and "Benito Cereno" (1855). These and three other stories were collected in 1856 as The Piazza Tales. In 1857, he traveled to England where he reunited with Hawthorne for the first time since 1852, and then toured the Near East. The Confidence-Man (1857) was the last prose work that he published. He moved to New York to take a position as Customs Inspector and turned to poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his poetic reflection on the moral questions of the American Civil War.
In 1867, his oldest child Malcolm died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot. Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land was published in 1876, a metaphysical epic. In 1886, his son Stanwix died, and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, left one volume unpublished, and returned to prose of the sea. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at his death but was published in 1924.
Melville's death from cardiovascular disease in 1891 subdued a reviving interest in his work. The 1919 centennial of his birth became the starting point of the "Melville Revival". Critics discovered his work, scholars explored his life; his major novels and stories have come to be considered world classics, and his poetry has gradually gained respect.
His writing draws on his experience at sea as a common sailor, exploration of literature and philosophy, and engagement in the contradictions of American society in a period of rapid change. He developed a complex, baroque style; the vocabulary is rich and original, a strong sense of rhythm infuses the elaborate sentences, the imagery is often mystical or ironic, and the abundance of allusion extends to biblical scripture, myth, philosophy, literature, and the visual arts.
Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a merchant in French dry goods and his wife. His formal education ended abruptly after his father died in 1832, as this left the family in financial straits. He briefly became a schoolteacher before he took to sea in 1839 as a sailor on a merchant ship. In 1840, he signed aboard the whaler Acushnet for his first whaling voyage but jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. He returned to Boston in 1844 after further adventures.
His first book was Typee (1846), a highly romanticized account of his life among Polynesians. It became such a best-seller that he wrote the sequel Omoo (1847). These successes gave him the financial basis to marry Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of a prominent Boston family, but the success proved hard to sustain. His first novel that was not based on his own experiences was Mardi (1849), a sea narrative that develops into a philosophical allegory—but it was not well received. He received warmer reviews for Redburn (1849), a story of life on a merchant ship, and his 1850 description of the harsh life aboard a man-of-war in White-Jacket, but they did not provide financial security.
In August 1850, Melville moved his growing family to Arrowhead, a farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he established a profound but short-lived friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom he dedicated Moby-Dick. This novel was another commercial failure, published to mixed reviews. Melville's career as a popular author effectively ended with the cool reception of Pierre (1852), in part a satirical portrait of the literary culture at the time. His Revolutionary War novel Israel Potter appeared in 1855.
From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines, most notably "Bartleby, the Scrivener" (1853), "The Encantadas" (1854), and "Benito Cereno" (1855). These and three other stories were collected in 1856 as The Piazza Tales. In 1857, he traveled to England where he reunited with Hawthorne for the first time since 1852, and then toured the Near East. The Confidence-Man (1857) was the last prose work that he published. He moved to New York to take a position as Customs Inspector and turned to poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his poetic reflection on the moral questions of the American Civil War.
In 1867, his oldest child Malcolm died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot. Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land was published in 1876, a metaphysical epic. In 1886, his son Stanwix died, and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, left one volume unpublished, and returned to prose of the sea. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at his death but was published in 1924.
Melville's death from cardiovascular disease in 1891 subdued a reviving interest in his work. The 1919 centennial of his birth became the starting point of the "Melville Revival". Critics discovered his work, scholars explored his life; his major novels and stories have come to be considered world classics, and his poetry has gradually gained respect.
Herman Melville - Wikipedia
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Thank you my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that August 1 is the anniversary of the birth of American novelist, short story writer, and poet Herman Melville.
1. man Melville's Moby Dick is a wonderful classic novel which captures the imagination of teenage boys as well as children ands their parents read it to them.
2. Melville’s first published book of poems was Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866), a meditation. He wrote this a trip to the Union Civil War front with his brother in 1864 {siege of Petersburg/Richmond.
Sadly in his lifetime,. like many great authors and artists, his writings were not recognized until after his death.
Rest in peace Herman Melville
Background from {[ https://poets.org/poet/herman-melville]}
"Herman Melville
Born on August 1, 1819, into a once-prominent New York family, Herman Melville was raised in an atmosphere of financial instability and genteel pretense. After his father’s death, Melville attempted to support his family by working various jobs, from banking to teaching school. However, it was his adventures as a seaman in 1845 that inspired Melville to write. On one voyage, he was captured and held for several months by the Typees; when he returned unscathed, friends encouraged Melville to write the escapade down. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life became his first literary success; the continuation of his adventures appeared in his second book, Omoo.
After ending his seafaring career, Melville’s concern over his sporadic education inspired him to read voraciously. In 1847, he married Elizabeth Shaw and moved first to New York and then the Berkshires. There he lived near the reclusive writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was to become a close friend and confidant. Intoxicated by metaphysics, Melville penned Mardi and a Voyage Thither, a philosophical allegory. The book failed, and though discouraged, Melville dashed off Redburn, a comedy. Although the book proved a financial success, Melville immediately returned to the symbolic in his next novel, White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War. In 1851, he completed his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, or the Whale. Considered by modern scholars to be one of the great American novels, the book was dismissed by Melville’s contemporaries and he made little money from the effort. The other two novels that today form the core of the Melville canon—Pierre; or the Ambiguities and The Confidence Man—met with a similar fate.
During the 1850s, Melville supported his family by farming and writing stories for magazines. He later traveled to Europe, where he saw his friend Hawthorne for the last time. During that visit in 1856, it was clear to Melville that his novel-writing career was finished. In 1857, after returning to New York still unnoticed by the literary public, he stopped writing fiction. He became a customs inspector, a job he held for twenty years. And he began to write poetry.
The Civil War made a deep impression on Melville and became the principal subject of his verse. With so many family members participating in various aspects of the war, Melville found himself intimately connected to events, and also sought out conflict for himself. He observed the Senate debating secession during a visit to Washington D.C. in 1861, and made a remarkable trip to the front with his brother in 1864. The volume is regarded by many critics as a work as ambitious and rich as any of his novels. Unfortunately, Melville’s remains relatively unrecognized as a poet.
Herman Melville died of a heart attack on September 28, 1891, at the age of 72. At that time, he was almost completely forgotten by all but a few admirers. During the week of his death, The New York Times wrote: “There has died and been buried in this city…a man who is so little known, even by name, to the generation now in the vigor of life that only one newspaper contained an obituary account of him, and this was but of three or four lines.” It wasn’t until the 1920s that the literary public began to recognize Melville as one of America’s greatest writers."
Biography - Herman Melville
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd38e_R4cjU
FYI SGT John MeredithMSgt John McGowanMSgt David M.LTC Jeff ShearerSGT Philip RoncariLt Col Jim CoeCWO3 Dennis M.SGT (Join to see)PO3 Bob McCordSgt Albert Castro1SG John MillanSSgt Boyd Herrst TSgt Rodney BidingerSGT Jim ArnoldSFC Randy PurhamCDR (Join to see) MSG Brian Ross SGT Rick Colburn PO3 Phyllis Maynard
1. man Melville's Moby Dick is a wonderful classic novel which captures the imagination of teenage boys as well as children ands their parents read it to them.
2. Melville’s first published book of poems was Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866), a meditation. He wrote this a trip to the Union Civil War front with his brother in 1864 {siege of Petersburg/Richmond.
Sadly in his lifetime,. like many great authors and artists, his writings were not recognized until after his death.
Rest in peace Herman Melville
Background from {[ https://poets.org/poet/herman-melville]}
"Herman Melville
Born on August 1, 1819, into a once-prominent New York family, Herman Melville was raised in an atmosphere of financial instability and genteel pretense. After his father’s death, Melville attempted to support his family by working various jobs, from banking to teaching school. However, it was his adventures as a seaman in 1845 that inspired Melville to write. On one voyage, he was captured and held for several months by the Typees; when he returned unscathed, friends encouraged Melville to write the escapade down. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life became his first literary success; the continuation of his adventures appeared in his second book, Omoo.
After ending his seafaring career, Melville’s concern over his sporadic education inspired him to read voraciously. In 1847, he married Elizabeth Shaw and moved first to New York and then the Berkshires. There he lived near the reclusive writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was to become a close friend and confidant. Intoxicated by metaphysics, Melville penned Mardi and a Voyage Thither, a philosophical allegory. The book failed, and though discouraged, Melville dashed off Redburn, a comedy. Although the book proved a financial success, Melville immediately returned to the symbolic in his next novel, White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War. In 1851, he completed his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, or the Whale. Considered by modern scholars to be one of the great American novels, the book was dismissed by Melville’s contemporaries and he made little money from the effort. The other two novels that today form the core of the Melville canon—Pierre; or the Ambiguities and The Confidence Man—met with a similar fate.
During the 1850s, Melville supported his family by farming and writing stories for magazines. He later traveled to Europe, where he saw his friend Hawthorne for the last time. During that visit in 1856, it was clear to Melville that his novel-writing career was finished. In 1857, after returning to New York still unnoticed by the literary public, he stopped writing fiction. He became a customs inspector, a job he held for twenty years. And he began to write poetry.
The Civil War made a deep impression on Melville and became the principal subject of his verse. With so many family members participating in various aspects of the war, Melville found himself intimately connected to events, and also sought out conflict for himself. He observed the Senate debating secession during a visit to Washington D.C. in 1861, and made a remarkable trip to the front with his brother in 1864. The volume is regarded by many critics as a work as ambitious and rich as any of his novels. Unfortunately, Melville’s remains relatively unrecognized as a poet.
Herman Melville died of a heart attack on September 28, 1891, at the age of 72. At that time, he was almost completely forgotten by all but a few admirers. During the week of his death, The New York Times wrote: “There has died and been buried in this city…a man who is so little known, even by name, to the generation now in the vigor of life that only one newspaper contained an obituary account of him, and this was but of three or four lines.” It wasn’t until the 1920s that the literary public began to recognize Melville as one of America’s greatest writers."
Biography - Herman Melville
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd38e_R4cjU
FYI SGT John MeredithMSgt John McGowanMSgt David M.LTC Jeff ShearerSGT Philip RoncariLt Col Jim CoeCWO3 Dennis M.SGT (Join to see)PO3 Bob McCordSgt Albert Castro1SG John MillanSSgt Boyd Herrst TSgt Rodney BidingerSGT Jim ArnoldSFC Randy PurhamCDR (Join to see) MSG Brian Ross SGT Rick Colburn PO3 Phyllis Maynard
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SSgt Boyd Herrst
Movy dick I believe was the best of his books that I read.. I have some. classics and think sure it is there..
I’ve seen some other printings and they seem for 10 year olds with their cartoon like pictures ... I enjoyed the versions with artist concepts that looked more real with the men in their tiny boats and harpoons and the giant Moby half In the air..
I’ve seen some other printings and they seem for 10 year olds with their cartoon like pictures ... I enjoyed the versions with artist concepts that looked more real with the men in their tiny boats and harpoons and the giant Moby half In the air..
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