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1、 Herman Melville(1819-1891) With contemporaries Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, and the New England Transcendentalists, Melville is numbered among the most important and widely read American writers of the nineteenth century. a novelist and essayist, known for his masterpiece, Moby-Dick.1. Three
2、important things in his life 1) Going out to seaHis experiences and adventures on the sea furnished him with abundant material for his fiction writings, especially his masterpiece Moby Dick In 1841, Melville went to the South Seas on a whaling ship, where he gained the first-hand information about w
3、haling that he used later in Moby Dick. In the following three years, Melville served on three different whalers, finally served for a year in the regular navy. Working as a sailor, he had experienced the most brutalizing life in his time for a man, yet years of adventures also furnished him with ab
4、undant raw materials for most of his major fictions and his imaginative visions of life. 2) His marriageIn the history of American literature there were two authors had similar marriages. Melville and Scott Fitzgerald, both married above them and had to do hackwork（纯 粹为糊口而写的东西，庸俗作品）for the money the
5、y needed to keep their wives in their extravagant style. 3)His friendship with HawthorneDuring the summer of 1850 Melville and Hawthorne met and became good friends. They shared similar ideas and opinions on most kinds of fields.Especially against the background of Transcendental optimism, Melville
6、agrees with Hawthornes Blackness - - the evil at the core of life. “Evil in life and the human soul help make life and man better” “To scale great heights, we must come out of the lowest depths. The way to heaven is through hell. We need fiery baptism in the fierce flame of our bosoms.” The original
7、 design of Moby Dick was just a text on the whale fishery. When Melville met Hawthorne, he had completed one third of Moby Dick. Without Hawthorne, Melville would have just written it about whaling hunting. With the influence of Hawthorne, Melville rewrote it into a world classic with a mixture of e
8、verything: history, philosophy, religion, the whaling industry, a Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting against fates in an indifferent and hostile world. In Token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. Hawthornes black vision regarding the evil of human bein
9、gs had in some way changed Melvilles outlook on life and the world and his allegorical way of exposition had affected his writing technique. Shakespearean tragic vision and Emersonian Transcendentalism also produced some positive effects on his writing.2. Melvilles Major Works 1) Novels (1)Polynsie
10、Trilogy “波里尼西亚三部曲” from his adventures among the people of the South Pacific islands Typee 1846泰皮 Omoo 1847欧穆 Mardi 1849玛地 (2) Redburn (1849) an account of his voyage to England; a semi- autobiographical novel, concerning the sufferings of a genteel youth among brutal sailors (3) White Jacket (1850)
11、 his life on a United States man-of-war (4) Pierre (1852): A darkly allegorical exploration of the nature of evil, which is psychologically complex and elaborate; a popular romance intended for the feminine market but provoking an outrageous repudiation. (5) Israel Potter 伊斯雷尔波特 (1855): A historical
12、 romance (6) The Confidence Man 骗子的化装表演 (1857):Satirizes the selfishness and commercialism of Melvilles time. (7) Billy Budd 比利巴德(1891) A novella about a young sailor, personifying innocence, doomed by the malevolent hatred of a ships officer, personifying evil. It deals with the sea and sailors and
13、 the theme of a conflict between innocence and corruption. 2) Short stories The Piazza Tales 广场故事 (1856):Contains some of Melvilles finest shorter works (1) Bartleby, the Scrivener 书记员巴特尔比 symbolizing the loneliness and anonymity and passivity of little men in big cities. Subtitled, “A Story of Wall
14、 Street”, it is set in the business world of 19th-century New York. “I prefer not to.“ (2) Benito Cereno 贝尼托塞莱诺 The story centers on a slave rebellion on board a Spanish merchant ship in 1799. Earlier critics regarded Benito Cereno as a tale that primarily explores human depravity . It is regarded b
15、y many as Melvilles finest short story. 3) Poetry: (1) Battle-Pieces and the Aspects of War 战事集(1866) (2) Clarel (1876)The differences between Melvilles early works and later ones Melvilles writings can be well divided into two groups, each with something in common in the light of the thematic concern and imaginative focus. His early works were sea adventures, considered to be the best. Among them are Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), and Mardi (1849). Redburn (1849) White Jacket (1850) Of all these sea adventure stories, Moby Dick proves to be the best. By writing
