Melville's Antithetical Muse : Reading the Shorter Poems

This study analyses Melville's poetics of opposition and focuses on local, thematic, rhetorical and technical aspects of the author's poems. Melville's tense relationship with his country rehearsed in his novels is condensed in the poetry analysed here. As a poet, Melville is, incredible as it may seem, a voice crying out in the wilderness, with the extensive tradition of the Western classics and the Bible echoed in these poems. The works analysed in this book have been selected from the three collections of poetry published during Melville's lifetime: Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, John Marr and Other Sailors with Some Sea-Pieces and Timoleon Etc. The dissent that emanates from this body of poetry underlines Melville's non-conformism to the orthodox expectations of late nineteenth-century America.