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The epistemology of the wonder-closet: Melville, Moby-Dick, and the Marvelous.(Herman Melville)

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From: Leviathan
Date: 20070301
Author:Luck, Chad

In 1847, four years before the publication of his whaling masterpiece, Herman Melville wrote the first of what would eventually be five book reviews for the New York magazine Literary World. The subject of this first review is Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, an autobiographical tale of life on a New Bedford whaler by J. Ross Browne. At first, Melville's treatment comes across as uninspired, as if he is bored and unwilling to devote much energy to the book. "From time immemorial," he ponderously begins, "many fine things have been said and sung of the sea." (1) Browne's book, we ...

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