{"id":"01KG8AM3BHZY0KP4SXZX4CBSNE","cid":"bafkreiavf7bzfmbbajajfnosvigczhgxegxjhvjwwibftege6q2gjmivli","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":635,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.200Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","start_line":568,"text":"story loses itself in a mystical allegory.\r\n\r\n‘Redburn,’ already mentioned, succeeded ‘Mardi’ in the same year, and\r\nwas a partial return to the author’s earlier style. In ‘White-Jacket;\r\nor, the World in a Man-of-War’ (1850), Melville almost regained it. This\r\nbook has no equal as a picture of life aboard a sailing man-of-war, the\r\nlights and shadows of naval existence being well contrasted.\r\n\r\nWith ‘Moby Dick; or, the Whale’ (1851), Melville reached the topmost\r\nnotch of his fame. The book represents, to a certain extent, the\r\nconflict between the author’s earlier and later methods of composition,\r\nbut the gigantic conception of the ‘White Whale,’ as Hawthorne expressed\r\nit, permeates the whole work, and lifts it bodily into the highest\r\ndomain of romance. ‘Moby Dick’ contains an immense amount of information\r\nconcerning the habits of the whale and the methods of its capture, but\r\nthis is characteristically introduced in a way not to interfere with\r\nthe narrative. The chapter entitled ‘Stubb Kills a Whale’ ranks with the\r\nchoicest examples of descriptive literature.\r\n\r\n‘Moby Dick’ appeared, and Melville enjoyed to the full the enhanced\r\nreputation it brought him. He did not, however, take warning from\r\n‘Mardi,’ but allowed himself to plunge more deeply into the sea of\r\nphilosophy and fantasy.\r\n\r\n‘Pierre; or, the Ambiguities’ (1852) was published, and there ensued\r\na long series of hostile criticisms, ending with a severe, though\r\nimpartial, article by Fitz-James O’Brien in Putnam’s Monthly. About the\r\nsame time the whole stock of the author’s books was destroyed by fire,\r\nkeeping them out of print at a critical moment; and public interest,\r\nwhich until then had been on the increase, gradually began to diminish.\r\n\r\nAfter this Mr. Melville contributed several short stories to Putnam’s\r\nMonthly and Harper’s Magazine. Those in the former periodical were\r\ncollected in a volume as Piazza Tales (1856); and of these ‘Benito\r\nCereno’ and ‘The Bell Tower’ are equal to his best previous efforts.\r\n\r\n‘Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile’ (1855), first printed as a\r\nserial in Putnam’s, is an historical romance of the American Revolution,\r\nbased on the hero’s own account of his adventures, as given in a little\r\nvolume picked up by Mr. Melville at a book-stall. The story is well\r\ntold, but the book is hardly worthy of the author of ‘Typee.’ ‘The\r\nConfidence Man’ (1857), his last serious effort in prose fiction, does\r\nnot seem to require criticism.\r\n\r\nMr. Melville’s pen had rested for nearly ten years, when it was again\r\ntaken up to celebrate the events of the Civil War. ‘Battle Pieces and\r\nAspects of the War’ appeared in 1866. Most of these poems originated,\r\naccording to the author, in an impulse imparted by the fall of Richmond;\r\nbut they have as subjects all the chief incidents of the struggle. The\r\nbest of them are ‘The Stone Fleet,’ ‘In the Prison Pen,’ ‘The College\r\nColonel,’ ‘The March to the Sea,’ ‘Running the Batteries,’ and ‘Sheridan\r\nat Cedar Creek.’ Some of these had a wide circulation in the press, and\r\nwere preserved in various anthologies. ‘Clarel, a Poem and Pilgrimage\r\nin the Holy Land’ (1876), is a long mystical poem requiring, as some one\r\nhas said, a dictionary, a cyclopaedia, and a copy of the Bible for its\r\nelucidation. In the two privately printed volumes, the arrangement of\r\nwhich occupied Mr. Melville during his last illness, there are several\r\nfine lyrics. The titles of these books are, ‘John Marr and Other\r\nSailors’ (1888), and ‘Timoleon’ (1891).\r\n\r\nThere is no question that Mr. Melville’s absorption in philosophical\r\nstudies was quite as responsible as the failure of his later books for\r\nhis cessation from literary productiveness. That he sometimes realised\r\nthe situation will be seen by a passage in ‘Moby Dick’:--\r\n\r\n‘Didn’t I tell you so?’ said Flask. ‘Yes, you’ll soon see this right\r\nwhale’s head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti’s.’\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJPEC473FXAMQWHHC31BK","peer_type":"frontmatter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM2SCVXAKD33TG2J0XVHA","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AM3B8RMRTDYJJ8T2KWM1N","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.969Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:32.527Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}