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Later and last: time and lyric moment in Melville's Battle-Pieces.(Herman Melville)

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From: Melville Society Extracts
Date: 20020701
Author:Barrett, Faith

In Battle-Pieces and Aspects of War, Melville foregrounds the journalistic sources he relies on. The title "Aspects of War" underlines the mediation of the speaker's perspective by suggesting that he will consider a variety of aspects or viewpoints, namely those of the war correspondents. The title suggests that the war could never be encompassed in a single text: the poems can offer only "pieces" or "aspects" of the conflict. Moreover, the temporal patterns of Battle-Pieces also underline the speaker's mediated perspective. Although Melville wrote most of the poems after the ...

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