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U53 - Coggle Diagram

- - - - 1819: Born in New York, Melville was raised in an atmosphere of financial instability, worsening with the death of his father in 1832. This fact influenced his adolescence and the rest of his life, leading to a theme in many of his novels; the child's search for his father in Moby Dick, Redburn & Billy Budd.
        
        He attempted to help support his family, working in various jobs that did not bring him fulfillment. However, the bankruptcy of the merchant family business where his oldest brother had been in charge forced him into a life at sea.
        
        At 20, Melville’s most important experiences in life started when he became a sailor. On board ship, he was deeply shocked by the life of the low class sailors. Their personal morality was completely different from anything his family had taught him. But when he began to write, life at sea became the most important material for his books and short stories.
        
        1940s novels
        
        Mardi
        
        It was too abstract and difficult to be popular. It tells the story of a sea voyage to the fictional island of Mardi. However, the is no longer real, but symbolic/allegorical. The hero visits various islands representing various countries of the world. One of the countries symbolized the US and is criticized because it rejects the past too easily and thinks that its own civilization will last forever.
        
        Thus, it uses allegory to comment on contemporary ideas about nations, politics, institutions, literature, and religion.Yet, it is Melville's first boldly attempt to siege the truth, and in this sense a preliminary to Moby Dick.
        
        and a Voyage Thither (1849)
        
        Redburn
        
        It goes back to Melville's first ocean voyage from New York to Liverpool and back on the merchant ship St. Lawrence a decade before (1939). It is a deeply humanitarian novel, emphasizing that people do not belong to just one nation, but to all of humanity. It explores themes of social injustice, the hardships faced by sailors, and the contrast between the Old World (Europe) and the New World (America).
        
        His First Voyage (1849)
        
        Typee
        
        A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846)
        
        His first novel, is a realistic, semi-autobiographical, first-person account of the adventures of a young American who jumps ship along with a companion (Toby). Making their way over a mountain range into an inland valley, the two find themselves among a cannibal tribe, the Typees. Toby is able to leave, but the narrator is compelled to remain with the bribe. This will allow him to discover the contrast between the vices of civilisation and the virtues of the supposedly barbarous natives (typical of transcendentalism: they see everything from an outer perspective).
        
        The book raises the question of whether happiness is always united with morality, leaving it unanswered. In spite of this discovery, Melville suggests that the wandering narrator can find satisfaction neither among his own people nor among the savages (this search for self-fulfillment is also typical of American literature). Ultimately, he chooses “civilization” over idyllic island life.
        
        The book praises the islanders and their natural, harmonious life, and criticizes the Christian missionaries, who Melville found less genuinely civilized than the people they came to convert.
        
        Omoo
        
        A Narrative of Adventures in the South sea (1847)
        
        A sequel that continues the adventures of Tom, the hero who escaped the Typee. Based on Melville’s own experiences in the South Pacific, it humorously tells of the narrator’s participation in a mutiny on a whale ship and his subsequent wanderings in Tahiti with the former doctor of the ship.
        
        Both novels contrast civilization with primitive life. It explores themes of colonialism, cultural encounters, and the effects of European contact on native peoples. On a deeper level they show the clash between the values of Christianity and those of the tribal religions.
    - - 1850: In the summer, Melville bought a farm near near Nathaniel Hawthorne’s home at Pittsfield, and the two men became neighbours & friends. Hawthorne was a mentor figure for Melville and The Scarlet Letter's style and themes, with its narrative, moral & psychological complexity, and use of symbolism & allegory, deeply influenced both Hawthorne & Moby-Dick.
        
        1851: Unfortunately, on publication, Moby-Dick did not bring him any popularity or financial success during his lifetime, as his genious was only discovered posthumously.
        
        the 1850s were the worst period of his life. He was permanently in debt and with a growing family to look after (two sons & two daughters), frequently in ill health and feeling in the verge of insanity. But he never ceased writing; partly for the little money he could make, partly in order to explain himself to himself.
        
        His subsequent novels like Pierre (1852), Bartleby (1853), Israel Potter (1855), and The Confidence Man (1857) were less ambitious and sold poorly, so Melville gave up on writing novels. At this point, he turned to writing poetry but the prospects for publication were not favourable.
        
        1891: Eventually, unhappy & unsuccessful, he died of a heart attack, completely forgotten in his country as he had lost all contact with the American public, unlike Hawthorne. Today, his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, is considered perhaps the greatest novel in the US history.
  - - - Moby-Dick
        
        Based on Melville's years of experience aboard whaleships as well as the real-life disaster of the Essex whaleship. A complex, multi-layered novel that tells the story of Captain Ahab's obsessive quest to hunt down and kill the great white whale, Moby-Dick,who had previously bitten off Ahab's leg during a whaling expedition. The first-person narrator, Ishmael, who turns to the sea for meaning, depicts the three-day chase of the White Whale, and the eventual, inevitable disaster when the whale kills Ahab and smashes the Pequod, killing everyone except Ishmael.
        
        On a deeper level, it can be read as an allegory of the whole human condition. From the beginning, it is clear that the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod will be a symbolic voyage and that the great white whale, represents God or fate, despite being given a great deal of factual information about whale-hunting in order to make the world of this book seem real. This interest for making what we are told "real" gives the novel a tremendous power.
        
        Obsession & Revenge: Captain Ahab's relentless pursuit of Moby-Dick is a symbol of the destructive power of obsession, exploring the consequences of pursuing a single-minded goal.
        
        The Nature of Evil: (Good vs Evil) Moby-Dick is often interpreted as a symbol of evil, chaos, or the unknowable mysteries of the universe. The novel examines the question of whether evil is an external force or something inherent in human nature.
        
        Man vs Nature: The novel deals with the relationship between humanity and the natural world, particularly the brutality of the whaling industry. It raises questions about humanity's impact on the environment and the consequences of exploiting nature.
        
        Fate & Free Will: The novel raises questions about the role of fate and free will in human life. Ahab's quest is often seen as a tragic fate, a predetermined path that he cannot escape. However, the crew members of the Pequod are manipulated by Ahab into thinking that the quest for Moby Dick is their common destiny, and their decisions are shown to shape their destinies.
        
        (1851) the greatest novel of American literature & American romanticism
- - - - 1855: Whitman, finally finding the style and voice he'd been searching for, self-published a thin collection of 12 untitled poems with a preface titled Leaves of Grass, of which he could only afford to print 795 copies. The following year, Whitman published a revised (second) edition of Leaves of Grass that featured 32 poems as well as a letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson praising the first edition despite it receiving little attention (a commercial failure). Whitman continued publishing several more editions of the book throughout his career.
        
        1862: He traveled to Washington to care for his brother who had been wounded in the war, and stayed in the city for 11 years, spending all excess money on his widowed mother and an invalid brother.
        
        Civil War: The start of the Civil War drove the publishing companies out of business. Whitman wrote freelance journalism and volunteered as a nurse, visiting the wounded. He later wrote about his experiences in a collection called "Drum-Taps."
        
        1882: Whitman continued to write poetry and essays throughout his life. In 1882, he published Leaves of Grass in its final form, which included over 300 poems. It sold better than any previous edition, and as a result, Whitman was able to buy a little cottage in Camden, where he spent the rest of his life, until he died in 1892.
  - - - Personalism
        
        Individual experience
        
        Connection to nature
        
        Transcendental elements
        
        Rejection of convention
        
        Sexual exploration
        
        Song of Myself
        
        The extremely long poem (or collection of closely related short poems) which occupied most of the 1st edition (1855) was later called Song of Myself. It announces all of the major themes of Whitman’s work. Whitman's poetry is a celebration of the self. He places emphasis on individual experience by encouraging individuals to embrace their own identity and be unapologetically themselves, as each person is significant and valuable.
        
        However, this celebration of himself ("I celebrate myself and I sing myself") is not egotistic, as this "self"/"I" is universal. Whitman frequently draws connections between the self and nature (connection to nature). He views the self as a part of the natural world and highlights the inter-connectedness of all living things, suggesting that the individual is spiritually connected to a universal consciousness (mystical & transcendental elements: transcendentalism).
        
        Also, Whitman's personalism involves a rejection of conventional moral standards and societal norms, accepting all aspects of the self, even those that may be considered taboo by society.
        
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        Poetic form
        
        He invented a completely new and completely American form of poetic expression. To him, message was always more important than form, and he was the first to explore fully the possibilities of free verse (without rhyme or metre). In his poetry, the lines are not usually organized into stanzas; instead, they look like ordinary sentences.
        
        And yet, it can still be heard or felt a clear rhythm thanks to the use of anaphora, the repetition of words and sounds, patterns of stress, pauses, etc. This, along with the content, gives unity to his poetry. However, to most of his contemporaries it seemed completely "unpoetic". In fact, Whitman wrote in a plain style, so that ordinary people could read him.
        
        Children of Adam
        
        & Calamus
        
        Children of Adam, a collection of poems within Leaves of Grass that were considered controversial in its time for its honest, explicit depiction & reflection of human sexuality and its celebration of the body, physical pleasure, sexual attraction and relationships between men & women.
        
        Calamus, on the other hand, explored the (emotional) intimacy between men, often interpreted as an expression of Whitman's own homosexual desires and relationships. This exploration of love & sexuality contributed to Whitman's reputation as a bold & innovative poet who celebrated the diverse aspects of human experience and emotion.
        
        Drum-Taps
        
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      - Leaves of Grass is the result of his personal development, both as a poet and as a human being. Constant revision and rearrangement from edition to edition made Leaves of Grass grow in humility and wisdom as its author lived.
- - - - 1831-1835: At this point, Poe had published 3 financially unsuccessful books of poetry and focused on writing full-time. He began to publish more short stories and in 1835 landed an editorial position with the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, developing a reputation as a cut-throat critic. From 1831 to 1835, Poe lived in Baltimore with his aunt Maria Clemm and his cousin Virginia Clemm, who soon who became his literary inspiration as well as his love interest.
        
        1836: They married when she was only 13 years old, but a decade later she would die of tuberculosis. The next years after his marriage were Poe’s most productive period as a fiction writer, where he composed most of the tales of terror Berenice (1835), Morella (1835), Ligeia (1838), The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) and William Wilson (1840).
        
        1845 was probably the most significant period in Poe’s life, the year when his most famous poem, The Raven, was published, which gave him national fame at once.
        
        1847: Following the death of his wife, his decadent lifestyle resulted in a series of flirtations with various women, an attempted suicide, drug-addiction and attacks of delirium tremens.
        
        1849 Death: In fact, he was picked up unconscious in a dark street in Baltimore and died 3 days later (1849). Although Poe was not at all times the brooding, gloomy person tradition has painted, his life was on the whole an unhappy one. Although he is now assessed as one of America’s best writers of the first half of the 19th c., like Melville, his genius was not fully recognised or appreciated in his own lifetime perhaps because his greatest misfortune was that he was born before his time.
        
        Gothic horror
        
        Stories of death
        
        The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
        
        The Masque of the Red Death (1842)
        
        The Pit and the Pendulum (1843)
        
        A Gothic supernatural horror story about a narrator who visits the crumbling mansion of the Usher family, witnessing their mental and physical decline.
        
        where death and disease are central themes as Prince Prospero hosts a masquerade ball to escape a deadly plague, but a mysterious figure dressed as the Red Death intrudes, symbolizing the inevitability of death.
        
        where the narrator is sentenced to death during the Spanish Inquisition and faces a series of torturous trials in a dark, pit-like dungeon.
        
        Emphasizes atmosphere, emotional depth & the unknown
        
        Murder stories
        
        The Black Cat (1843)
        
        The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)
        
        The Cask of Amontillado (1846)
        
        A story of a man's descent into murder and madness involving the killing of a pet and a spouse.
        
        In addition to being a short story, it is often analyzed as a work of literary criticism, highlighting Poe's mastery of the short story form and his psychological insights.
        
        A tale of revenge and murder as the narrator lures a man into the catacombs to meet his doom.
        
        Focus on inducing fear & terror in the reader
        
        Stories of love
        
        Ligeia (1838)
        
        where the narrator marries Ligeia, a woman of extraordinary beauty and intelligence, who dies and then mysteriously returns from the dead, leading to questions about life, death, and the supernatural.
        
        His technique was to put his characters into unusual situations and next he would carefully describe their feelings of terror or guilt.
        
        Others
        
        Detective stories
        
        the father of ~
        
        The Murderers in the Rue Morgue (1841)
        
        The Purloined Letter (1844)
        
        The Mystery of Marie Roget (1845)
        
        it follows C. Auguste Dupin as he investigates a dreadful double murder (the strangled & mutilated bodies of Madame L'Espanaye & her daughter) in Rue Morge, a street in Paris.
        
        where Dupin is called upon to retrieve a stolen letter that is being used to blackmail a prominent individual. Dupin uses his analytical skills to outsmart the criminals and recover the letter.
        
        A fictionalized account of a real unsolved murder case, in which the detective Auguste Dupin attempts to solve the mystery.
        
        Adventure stories
        
        The Mr. Found in a Bottle (1833)
        
        The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838)
        
        The Gold-Bug (1843)
        
        where a lonely adventurer meets with physical and psychological horrors while is moved towards a state of insanity. The theme of this strange sea story was used in many later stories.
        
        an adventurous and often surreal tale of a sea voyage, shipwrecks, mutiny, and strange encounters in uncharted waters.
        
        a treasure-hunting adventure involving the deciphering of a hidden message and a search for buried riches.
        
        Poetry
        
        The Raven and Other Poems (1845)
        
        one of the most famous poems in US literature. It tells the story of a grieving man who is visited by a mysterious, talking raven that utters a single word, "Nevermore," in response to the man's questions.
        
        Poe was also one of the creators of the modern detective story, establishing many of the conventions and characteristics of the genre & an inspiration for Sherlock Holmes
        
        b) MAIN THEMES
        
        Madness
        
        & Duality
        
        Prevalent in Poe's works, his characters frequently experience mental and emotional breakdowns. Thus, stressing the fragility of the human mind and the thin line between sanity and insanity.
        
        Poe often explores the conflicted nature of human beings (psychological complexity). Characters may be torn between conflicting desires or aspects of their personalities, leading to inner conflict (which contributes to the psychological depth of his characters).
        
        Death
        
        He often explores the idea of mortality, the fragility of life, and the inevitability of death. Whether it's the premature burial of a character in "The Premature Burial" or the horrific murders in "The Tell-Tale Heart," death is a constant presence, and the fear of it drives the narrative.
        
        His characters often feel that their actions are guided by an inescapable fate/destiny, leading to a sense of fatalism. The belief in an inevitable outcome adds to the fatalistic and tragic nature of his stories.
        
        & Fate/Destiny
        
        Guilt
        
        & Conscience
        
        Poe's characters often grapple with guilt, either for their own actions (the guilt of concealing a crime, the weight of their own conscience, etc.) or as a result of external forces, leading to mental & emotional torment.
        
        Obsession
        
        & Revenge
        
        Poe's characters often become fixated on an idea, person or object to the point of madness & self-destruction (the destructive power of obsession). Also, the desire for revenge can lead characters to commit acts of violence & cruelty.
        
        the Supernatural
        
        By incorporating elements of the supernatural, the otherworldly or the uncanny, Poe blurs the line between the ordinary and the extraordinary, creating a creepy & mysterious atmosphere.
        
        & the Uncanny
        
        Symbolism
        
        Poe was a master of symbolism in his short stories, often using objects, animals, and settings to convey deeper, darker meanings and contribute to the overall atmosphere and narrative.
  - - - His technique was to put his characters into unusual situations and next he would carefully describe their feelings of terror or guilt, as in The Pit And The Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat. The common element in all his stories is that he rarely shows the actual object of horror. Instead, the reader has to use his imagination.
- - - - The 1830s was an age of optimism & rapid westward expansion. At this time Boston and its neighbouring towns and villages were filled with a great intellectual excitement and activity. These young intellectuals (like Ralph Waldo Emerson & Henry David Thoreau) were dissatisfied with the old patriotism (from American independence) and were not interested in America’s power or wealth, and there was much talk about “The New Spiritual Era”. Instead they proposed to explore the inner self, the individual. In order to do this most of them kept diaries of their lives and feelings, studied philosophy, became vegetarians or nudists… In the centre of this intellectual activity was Trandescendalism.
  - - - They supported true individualism, stayed out of society and aimed to withdraw the individuals from the masses, as they encouraged the "New American" to be intellectually & morally self-sufficient /independent, that is, true to themselves & their beliefs, even if it meant going against societal norms/expectations (non-conformity). Many transcendentalists were also involved in social reform movements, including abolitionism & women's rights, out of their belief in the inherent goodness of humanity.