The Uprising of Herman Melville: Moby Dick and Billy Budd

Herman Melville was an author, poet, traveler, and even a teacher. Melville is one of the most famous writers to this day, and he wrote some of the most famous books of his time. Melville wasn’t much appreciated by his critics in his timeline, but years after his death, he was an American icon. Melville traveled the world to write some of his most famous works. “Call me Ishmael” is one of the most famous lines (that Melville wrote) in American literature.

Herman Melville was born on August 1st, 1819 in New York City. His parents were children of revolutionary war heroes. Their names were Allan and Maria (Melvill). Allan was a merchant from New England, and his mother came from an old socially prominent New York Dutch family. Melville had seven siblings, three of which were boys, and the other four were girls. He was number three of the seven. He lived his first eleven years in Albany New York, but then his father had a financial and mental breakdown that later caused his death. Their family later changed their last name to Melville, not wanting to associate themselves with Allan Melvill and his Life’s failures. When Melville was six years old, he entered the New York Male High school. At age nine Melville enrolled into the Grammar school of Columbia college. Seven years later Melville returned to Albany, and enrolled into Albany’s classical school. Two years later Melville finished up school at Albany Academy not knowing the future that lays ahead for him.

During his teenage years, Melville held temporary jobs. He was a bank clerk, bookkeeper, farmworker, and a teacher. When Herman was twelve, he was hired as a bank clerk for fifty dollars a year. Two years later he was put to work in his brothers cap and fur store. After his formal years of schooling, he went on to work as a school teacher in Greenbush, New York. The school he worked at could not afford to pay him, so he traveled to Brunswick, New York to become a substitute teacher. When Melville was older, he served as a cabin boy amongst many different whaling ships. To pay for his expanses he positioned as a deputy inspector of customs.

All the different whaling voyages Melville went on were spectacular and full of interesting events. Many of his voyages led to fantastic creations, and better experiences. Melville’s first sailing voyage was from New York to Liverpool on a boat called the Saint Lawrence. One of Melville’s greatest voyage was the passage around Cape Horn to the pacific Equatorial whaling grounds. Melville landed on the Nuka Hiva Island, in the Marquesas Islands. In Nuka Hiva he spent three days not knowing he was going to the Taipei valley. When he arrived in the village of the Taipiavi valley, he claimed he was “Amongst the Cannibals” (Steffof pg.33) On March ninth, 1847 Melville traveled to Boston to ask a judge named Lemuel Shaw to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Five months later, Herman Melville married Elizabeth Shaw in Boston. Two years later, his first child was born, his name was Malcolm. Melville had three more children with Elizabeth, named Stanwix, Frances, and his last child was named Elizabeth. Melville’s first books were Fragments from a Writing Desk, which first appeared in the Democratic Press, another early book was Lansing burgh Advertiser. Redburn was one of Melville’s earlier works too, it was based from the voyage of Saint Lawrence. Redburn was about his love of sea travel and it provided him with education, upon which he relied for many of his commercially successful narratives.

Typee was a later book wrote by Melville, it was based off Melville’s real life experiences on the Island of Nuka Hiva, an island in French Polynesia. At first many people denied the book like publishers “Harpers and Brothers” because they thought that it was more fiction than non-fiction. Eventually it was accepted, and it was published by John Murray. The book Omoo was the sequel to Typee, and it was about Tahaiti and the customs and traditions of Tahaiti.

Along with some of his earlier works, his most important works were Moby Dick and Billy Budd. Moby Dick is the story of the hunt for Moby Dick, a fierce white whale that was known to sailors in Melville’s time. The basis of Moby Dick was when he went on an eighteen-month whaling expedition around the Pacific Ocean. The characters in Moby Dick were a crucial part of his writing. Some characters include Ahab and Ishmael. Ahab was the captain of the ship in Moby Dick, and he plays a role of symbolism in Melville’s writing. Ishmael was another very important character, and he has brought Melville a long way, Ishmael always has a present voice that offers the narrative equivalent sense of the dramatic chorus (like the Greek chorus throughout his book). Moby Dick was published in 1851. Another great book was Billy Budd. Billy Budd was one of his most celebrated and acclaimed works, and it was considered a masterpiece. Billy Budd was a tragedy, but the true role of Billy is to offset the tragedy. Billy Budd was the last book published by Herman Melville, and it was later adopted to screen for Broadway.

Some other works like Isle of the cross and The Ambiguities were greatly depreciated books. Isle of the Cross was one of Melville’s failures, it was never published, and it was rejected upon the Harpers and Brothers publications. The Ambiguities was another failure of Melville’s, it was a critical failure, and most definitely a financial failure as well. Along with his early books, later books, best and worst books, Melville wrote poetry.

In his later years he wrote poetry, and his reputation wasn’t high until the late twentieth century, many people don’t really pay attention to his poetry as much as his books. The reason he wrote poetry was because it was more of an “instrument of meditation rather than the sake of the melody or linguistic play” (Vqronline.org) but yet he wrote two times more than Dickinson, and as many lines as Walt Whitman.

The way Melville writes his books is very unique. Melville uses Greek Mythology a lot in his writing, and example of this is in Moby Dick, where Ahab the captain of Pequod is figured as Prometheus, the god who takes fire from other gods to bring it to real life humanity. Melville also uses a lot of biblical language and also Greek mythology and expects readers to understand it really well to connect it to his works.

Melville couldn’t write forever though, he had many diseases that messed with him. Melville had bipolar affective disorder, and also had alcoholism. He suggested that he may have had suffered from Post-Traumatic stress Disorder (PTSD). Lots of people called him psychotic. When he was younger, he and his sister both got scarlet fever which impaired there vision until death, and he also had a family history of rheumatological disease, he got a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis which is an arthritis in your spine or big joints on your back. A few months before his death he was diagnosed with a respiratory infection (Bronchitis).

He later died on September 28th 1819 because of a heart attack, he was then buried at the Woodlawn cemetery in New York City. During his lifetime he said “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation” (Thefamouspeople.com) meaning, although he did badly in his lifetime, at least his works were original. Herman Melville was a very financially unsuccessful writer, and also was criticized for his works as well. Melville earned a total of about ten thousand dollars for his just his works in his writing career. In the late twentieth century the Melville revival brought a reassessment of his work later being crowned (didn’t actually get awards) as one of the best authors in American history. After his death more of his works were being recognized including Billy Budd, and soon the publication of Billy Budd followed.