Index

• Acushnet, ship list, 43
• Adams, Henry, chaos and purposelessness pictured by, 360
• Adjustment, fallacious interpretation of, 313–344
• Adler, Dr., 120
• Adolescent purity, 216
• After the Pleasure Party, 274
• Ahab, Captain, 161 ff.
• Alcott, Bronson, 66
• Alma, 99
• Ambiguities, Melville’s experiences of, 210;
• Emerson’s expression of, 216
• Ambition, Melville’s secret, 347
• American Aloe on Exhibition, The, 345
• American folk-arts, 45
• American psyche, broken, 229
• American society, in 1819, 9;
• in 1844, 63;
• economic conflict, 63;
• question of one and many, 63;
• slavery and industrialism, 64;
• intrusion of new habits of living, 64;
• contrast of vital and mechanical, provincial and metropolitan, 66;
• in 1860, 293;
• loss of form, 293;
• wastefulness of industrialism in, 294
• Anglo-American Literature and Manners, 74
• Anticipation of modern science, Melville’s, 99
• Appletree Table, The, 236
• Arrowhead, 136
• Articles of War, 355
• Arts, as means of salvation, 318
• Attica, comparison with North Atlantic states, 65
• Azzageddi, Melville’s demon, 102
• Babbalanja, 95
• Barney, 21
• Bartleby the Scrivener, 236–239
• Battle Pieces and Other Aspects of the War, 303–305
• Beddoes, 179
• Bell-Tower, 236
• Benito Cereno, 244–246
• Bentley, 123
• Beowulf, 194
• Berkshires, 135
• Billson, James, 334
• Billy Budd, 337, 353–356
• Birth, 16
• Bitterness of life, 309
• Blackness, Melville’s, 233–235
• Blake, William, 335
• Boynton, Percy, 181, 194
• Bridegroom Dick, 337
• Broadhall, 135
• Brooks, Van Wyck, 110, 194
• Bryant, William Cullen, 12
• Bullen, Frank, 147
• Camoëns, 58
• Captain Claret, 59
• Captain Riga, 29, 36
• Captains, The Two, 290
• Centenary Committee, 333
• Chapin, Henry, 369
• Chaplain Mudge, 44
• Charity, 249, 253
• Chase, Jack, 57
• Chasles, M. Philarète, 74
• Children, Melville’s, plight of, 287;
• fate of Malcolm and Stanwix, 288
• Christianity, Melville’s respect for, 103;
• his repugnance toward, 320
• Chronometricals and Horologicals, 214
• Civil War, the, a dividing point, 291;
• attempt to preserve ideological framework by, 292;
• symbolizes disruption, 293;
• described by Whitman, 297
• Claggart, causeless evil in, 354
• Clarel, 307–324
• Coan, Titus Munson, 259
• Cock-a-doodle-do, 236
• Cologne, 128
• Colonel J. Bunkum, 337
• Confidence, lack of, 248
• Confidence Man, The, 247–255
• Consular post, Melville’s efforts to secure, 235, 289
• Contempt, Melville’s, for contemporaries, 233
• Convictions, conflict of, 301
• Cousins, their condescension and Melville’s resentment, 75
• Critic, The, 3
• Critics, their condemnation of Mardi, 105;
• misconception of Melville, 106
• Crystal Palace Exhibition, 188
• Culture, new, 361
• Customs Office, an asylum, 329
• Daggoo, 165
• Dana, Richard Henry, 40
• Dark Ages of Democracy, 327
• Death, biological terminus, 359;
• spiritual significance, 359
• Death, Herman Melville’s, 357
• Democratic Press and Lansingburgh Advertiser, 36
• De Quincey, 127
• Derwent, 311
• Dilemma as writer, 221
• Dominora, 97
• Dowden, quoted, 234
• Duke of Rutland, 129
• Duyckinck, Evert, 73;
• expurgates Typee, 76;
• introduces Melville to literary world, 79;
• Lowell’s characterization of, 80;
• correspondence with Melville, 140 ff.
• Duyckinck, George, 79
• Duyckincks, The, Whitman’s opinion of, 80
• Edens, authentic, 339
• Emerson, Lectures on the Times, 65;
• defended by Melville, 140;
• absence of shadows in, 141
• Encantadas, The, or Enchanted Isles, 239–240
• England, first impression of, 33;
• return to, 119 ff.;
• depth and triviality of, 124, 125
• Enthusiast, The, 342
• Eternity, 98
• Ethan Brand, criticism of Melville in, 145
• European observations, 273–274
• Evil, discovery in Mardi, 96, 246
• Fact, respect for in nineteenth-century literature, 192;
• in Moby-Dick, 192
• Faith, animal, 324
• Fantasies, usable and unusable, 233
• Father Mapple, 159–160
• Father Taylor, prototype of Father Mapple, 44
• Fayaway, Melville’s companion, 49, 52
• Fiddler, The, 259
• Flask, 164
• Flogging, Melville’s influence on abolition of, 117
• Forms, world of, 359
• Forster, E. M., 209
• Free verse, in Pierre, 181
• Gansevoort Hotel, 329
• Gansevoort Market, 329
• Gansevoorts, 11
• Glendinning, Mrs., 203
• Golden Day, The, 141
• Goodman, Frank, 250
• Grand Armada, 171
• Greene, Richard Tobias, 73
• Haglets, The, 342
• Harper’s, 135, 235
• Hautia, symbol of sensual bliss, 51;
• her attractiveness in Typee, 51
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel, first effect on Melville, 137;
• likeness to Rembrandt, 138,
• to Shakespeare, 138;
• first meeting with Melville, 142;
• last meeting, 262–265
• Hawthorne, Sophia, characterization of Melville, 143
• Herzen, Alexander, 91, 315
• Hiatus, in Melville’s emotional development, 218;
• in his career, 291
• Highlander, The, 28, 32
• Human values, sweeping away of, 319
• Humiliation, effect of, 31
• Humour, of desperation, 169;
• Melville’s perpetual sense of, 290
• I and My Chimney, 236
• Ideal life, fantastic notions of, 65
• Ideality, embodied in animal instincts, 352
• Illness, Melville’s, 224–225
• Imaginative synthesis, Moby-Dick as, 170–171
• Industrialism, as end in itself, 65;
• wastefulness of, 294;
• bleak efficiency and blindness to humane purpose, 319
• Inheritance, 336
• Innocents Abroad, 328
• Insanity, looseness of term, 231;
• biographer’s difficulty, 231;
• Melville’s interpretation of, 231–232;
• relationship with art, 232–233
• Institutions, upheaval in 1848, 91;
• savage parody of in Mardi, 91
• Instrumentation of Moby-Dick, 182
• Irving, Washington, 139
• Isabel, 202
• Israel Potter, 240–242
• Jack Gentian, 337
• Jackson, 29;
• Melville pities, 235
• Jehovah, birth of idea of, 271
• Jewish literature, Melville’s sympathies with, 320
• Jimmy Rose, 259
• Jocularity, infirmity of, 283, 290–291
• John Brown, 297
• John Marr, 338
• Jokes, family’s indifference to, 332
• Journals, Melville’s, to England and the Continent, 119–131;
• to Constantinople and the Holy Land, 261–273
• Jung, 194
• Juvenile Total Abstinence Association, 29
• Kinship with Thoreau, 112
• Kory-Kory, manservant, 47
• Lake of Pontoosuce, The, 349–350
• Lawrence, D. H., 194
• Leisure, Melville’s high opinion of, 332
• Lenin, 316
• Life, implication of ideal ends, 189;
• as more than living, 190;
• stultification in vacuous dreams, 316
• Life, naïve joy in, 49;
• sinister meanings of, 124;
• shadow of death on, 129
• Libellous criticism, 106
• Lightning Rod Man, The, 236
• Literary method, Melville’s conception, 212
• Literary World, The, 79
• Lockhart, 125
• Lombardo, 102
• London, greyness of, 124;
• depression of, 126
• Londoners, 123
• Lucy, 202
• MacMechan, Archibald, 337
• Man of the World, The, 290
• Manhattan literati, 79
• Mardi, characterization of, 93–101
• Mark Twain, 328
• Marquesas, 46–55
• Marquis de Grandvin, 337
• Masefield, John, 110
• Material civilization, lopsidedness of, 361
• Mather, F. J., Jr., 241
• Mechanical arts, menace of their perfection, 318
• Media, 95
• Mehevi, King of Typees, 47
• Melville, Allan, brother of Herman, 66
• Melville, Allan, father of Herman Melville, characteristics, 13, 14;
• knowledge of Europe, 15;
• marriage, 14;
• traveller, 21;
• death, 23
• Melville, Elizabeth (Shaw), marries Herman, 86;
• as housekeeper, 136;
• strain of relationship with Herman, 287;
• receives affectionate dedication of Weeds and Wildings, 344
• Melville, Gansevoort, 25, 67, 80
• Melville, Herman, his family, 11–14;
• birth, 17;
• birthplace, 17;
• early impressions, 17;
• starved of affection, 18;
• moved to Bleecker Street, 18;
• melancholy situation, 19;
• relatives, 20;
• influence of Manhattan, 21;
• ambitions, 22;
• father’s death in 1832, 23;
• fixation of father’s image, 24;
• struggle for existence, 25–26;
• Grand Tour, 27;
• an infant Ishmael, 28;
• bitterness of youth, 28;
• disappointment in Liverpool, 33;
• exploration of city, 34;
• first view of misery and degradation, 34–35;
• essential education, 35;
• return to Lansingburgh, 36;
• slow growth, 36;
• early sexual life, 36–37;
• first literary effusions, 37–38;
• beginning of self-consciousness, 39;
• preparation for literature, 38;
• attraction to sea, 40;
• departure from New Bedford, 41;
• leaves ship at Nukuheva, 46;
• lives among Typees, 47–52;
• is rescued by the Julia, 52;
• makes friends with Dr. Long Ghost, 52;
• participates in mutiny, 53;
• is confined in British jail, 54;
• becomes a rover, 54–55;
• enjoys idle life, 55;
• works in Honolulu, 55;
• becomes sick of adventure, 56;
• ships on U. S. Frigate, United States, 56;
• homeward bound, 56–62;
• discovers abuses in Navy, 57;
• makes friends with Jack Chase, 57;
• is influenced in literary taste by ship’s library, 57–58;
• is condemned to flogging, 58;
• has impulse to assault Captain, 58;
• resents “massacre of beards,” 59;
• falls from yard-arm, 59–60;
• beginning of manhood, 61;
• lands at Boston, 62;
• writes Typee, 67;
• habit of documentation, 69;
• accuracy, 70;
• effect of censorship on, 77;
• successful author, 78;
• writes Omoo, 81;
• marries Elizabeth Shaw, 86;
• honeymoon, 87;
• daily routine, 87–89;
• has weak eyes, 88;
• writes Mardi, 91;
• tightening of domestic responsibility, 108;
• necessity for potboilers, 108;
• writes Redburn, 108;
• writes White-Jacket, 114;
• goes to Europe, 119;
• becomes acquainted with English society, 122;
• steady growth and development, 131;
• return to America, 131;
• moves to Arrowhead, 136;
• meets Hawthorne, 142;
• correspondence with, 144 ff.;
• discovers Hawthorne’s sentiments, 147;
• apprenticeship over, 150;
• intensity of effort in Moby-Dick, 151;
• ruin of eyesight, 152;
• feeling of desolation, 154;
• is damned by dollars, 155;
• contempt of fame, 155;
• swift development, 156;
• exaltation and terror from Moby-Dick, 156;
• situation after Moby-Dick, 196;
• culmination of powers, 197;
• disclosure of weaknesses, 196;
• his wilful defiance, 199;
• mood of defeat, 200;
• betrays himself in Pierre, 218;
• terrific pressure leads to retreat of, 220;
• dilemmas as writer, 107, 220;
• anticipation of defeat, 221;
• failure to mature in marriage, 222;
• draws near spiritual Cape Horn, 223;
• alienation from humanity, 227;
• scorn of critics, 228;
• Timonism, 230;
• meets successive misfortunes, 235, 236;
• weakened health, 236;
• writes Piazza Tales, 236;
• Israel Potter, and The Confidence Man, 236–255;
• recoils from painful experience, 259;
• goes on voyage to Holy Land, 261;
• visits Hawthorne in England, 261;
• discusses withdrawal from literature, 263;
• fails to renew friendship, 265;
• sails for Near East, 265;
• explores Constantinople, 267, and Cairo, 270;
• has passionate encounter in Italy, 274–281;
• returns home, 1857, 281;
• seeks to gain living in lecture lyceum, 282;
• voyage to San Francisco in 1860, 284;
• longing for Elizabeth, 286;
• commonplaceness as father, 287;
• sells Arrowhead, meets carriage accident, moves to New York, 289;
• interest in Civil War, 292–303;
• eventual disillusion, 303;
• withdraws from literary struggle, 306;
• gets inspectorship in Customs House, 307;
• writes Clarel, 307–308;
• is indifferent to “recognition,” 333;
• is released from Customs House, 336;
• resumes literary work and writes Billy Budd, 337;
• publishes John Marr, 338;
• publishes Timoleon, 342;
• writes Weeds and Wildings, 344;
• expresses warmth of love for Elizabeth, 345;
• finds peace, 351;
• expresses ultimate resignation in Billy Budd, 357;
• death, 357
• Melville, Malcolm, 92
• Melville, Maria, mother of Herman Melville, comparison with Mrs. Glendinning, 14
• Melville, Stanwix, 287
• Melville, Thomas, ambition to become sailor, 67
• Men-about-literature, 333
• Metcalf, Eleanor Melville, v
• Milton, 191
• Minnigerode, Meade, 285
• Misinterpretation of Melville, 224
• Missionaries, 74
• Moby-Dick, writing of, 147–157;
• summary of, 158–176;
• criticism of, 176–195;
• symphonic quality, 182;
• organic conception of, 182;
• its meaning as story of sea, 183;
• as parable of evil, 184;
• as tragedy of man, 187;
• as contrast of practical and ideal life, 188
• Modern vision of life, 194
• Mohi, 95
• Monody (to Hawthorne), 265
• Mortmain, 310
• Murray, Dr. Henry A., Jr., vi
• Murray, John, 73
• Mythology, Moby-Dick as first modern, 193
• Nathan, 310
• Nature, oneness with, 351;
• paints like a harlot, 352
• New York, in 1819, 15–16;
• after Civil War, 326;
• its brutality, 327
• New Bedford, centre of whaling industry, 42, 158
• No Trust, 249
• O’Brien, Fitz-James, 198
• Olympians, English, 124
• Omoo, 81–84
• Orthodox illusions, Melville’s rejection of, 324–325
• Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, 191
• Palestine, effect on Melville, 309
• Paradise of Bachelors, 130, 236
• Paradox of morality, 216
• Passion, reawakening in Italy, 275;
• frustration, 276–281
• Parrington, Vernon, 199
• Peace, Melville’s ultimate, 357
• Pequod, The, 161
• Personal disappointment and bitterness, 109;
• an Ishmael, 109
• Physical characteristics, Melville’s, 119
• Physical weakness, 225
• Piazza Tales, The, 243
• Pictures, Melville’s favourite, 130, 336
• Pierre, 196–206
• Pilgrims, Melville’s and Chaucer’s, 311–312
• Pip, 170
• Pittsfield, 135, 341
• Plotinus Plinlimmon, 215
• Political institutions, Melville’s misgivings over, 295
• Post-bellum America, 343
• Primal world, Melville’s consciousness of, 353
• Progress, its illusory nature, 313–314
• Prose-sketches, 337
• Provincial society, 9;
• its economic foundations, 10;
• mixture of nationalities, 10;
• reality of family, 11;
• idealized in Pierre, 13;
• destruction, 292
• Psychological truth, in Pierre, 211
• Pyramids, the, effect on Melville, 271
• Queequeg, 160
• Rama, 330
• Rammon, Introduction to, quoted, 323
• Realism, 5
• Recoil from black experience, 255
• Redburn, 108–114
• Refugee, The, 290
• Rembrandt, 336
• Resignation, on point of, 259
• Retarding environment, 345
• Return of the Sire de Nesle, 90
• Revolutionary betterment, psychological problem of, 316
• Rip Van Winkle, Melville’s addition to, 353
• Rolfe, 310
• Rose Garden, The, 348
• Rumour of Melville’s insanity, 224
• Ruskin, John, in praise of war, 359
• Russell, W. Clark, 334
• Ruth, 310
• Ryder, Albert Pinkham, 335
• Sailors, hard life, 30;
• monotony of pleasures, 31
• Salvator R. Tarnmoor, pseudonym for H. M., 239
• Satire, perfection in White-Jacket, 116;
• in The Confidence Man, 253
• Science, Melville’s utilization of, 163
• Sea Poems, 334, 340
• Seaman’s Bethel, 43
• Serenia, 99
• Sermon on the Mount, 195
• Sexual feud, 277
• Shakespeare, William, Melville’s discovery of in maturity, 138;
• Messianic likeness for Melville, 138
• Shaw, Lemuel, inheritance left by, 336
• Significance, Melville’s, 361–368
• Slavery, Melville’s attitude towards, 296;
• Hawthorne’s attitude, 297
• Smith, J. E. A., testimony on Melville, 341
• Society, immoral practices of, 111
• Social observation, Melville’s, 314–316
• Starbuck, 164
• Stedman, Arthur, 358
• Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 327
• Stewart, Miss Caroline, v
• Stoddard, R. H., 329
• Surgeon Cuticle, his operation, 116
• Synthesis, foreshadowed by Melville, 362
• Taboo, its caprices, 50;
• effect of sexual, 78
• Taji, 94–101
• Tartarus of Maids, The, 64, 236
• Tashtego, 165
• Thomas, Mrs. Frances, v
• Thomson, James, 334
• Thoreau, experiment at Walden, 65
• Thy Aim, Thy Aim?, 348
• Timonism, 233
• Toby, 72;
• story of, 74
• Tragic sense of life, the, 358
• Transcendentalists, satire on, 213
• Travels, to Liverpool, 29;
• to London, 119;
• to Paris, 127;
• to Liverpool (1856), 261;
• to Greece, 265;
• to Constantinople, 267;
• to Cairo, 270;
• to Jerusalem, 272;
• through Europe, 273;
• to California, 284
• Turner, 336
• Twenty-sixth Street, 104 East, 328
• Two Years Before the Mast, effect on Melville, 40
• Typee, 68–76
• Typees, their cannibalism, 47;
• customs, 48;
• superiority to Western Civilization, 48;
• their beauty, 49;
• pleasures of their life, 49;
• Melville’s escape from, 52
• Ulver, Delly, 203
• Unconscious, discovery of the, 102
• Universe, acceptance of, 351;
• false metaphysical separation of, 352
• Vedder, Elihu, 334
• Vere, Captain the Honorable Edward Fairfax, 354
• Versification, Melville’s weakness in, 303, 320
• Vice and Virtue, 217
• Victorian confidence, 318
• Vine, 310
• Vision, wholeness of, 368
• Vivenza, 97
• Vivia, 205
• War, its anomalous nature, 298;
• its arousal of Melville, 298–302
• as image of Melville’s life, 299
• Watson, E. L. G., 369
• Weaver, Raymond, v, 344
• Weeds and Wildings, 344
• Wendell, Barrett, 80
• Whale, first effect on Melville, 41;
• a New Bedford memory, 42;
• as symbol, 162;
• as natural history, 162, 163
• Whale ship, Melville’s College, 46
• Whaling implements, 45
• White, as symbol of elemental truth, 168
• White-Jacket, 114–118
• Whitehead, A. N., 191
• White Whale, incarnation of malicious agencies, 166;
• symbol of external universe, 167;
• Ahab’s defiance of, 167
• Whitman, Walt, 4, 5
• Woman, her absence in Melville’s work, 201
• Woodberry, George, 80
• Work, dignity of, 332
• Wulf, Uncle John de, 20
• Yillah, 94;
• symbol of spiritual quest, 51;
• beckons Melville, 52
• Yoomy, 95
• Young Goodman Brown, 203

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Transcriber’s note: A small number of spelling corrections were made (“ultilizes/utilizes”, “Mappie’s/Mapple’s”, “closses/closes”). Inconsistent hyphenation (e.g., “whale-boat” vs. “whaleboat”) has been retained.