Customer Reviews

Clarel: Volume Twelve, Scholarly Edition (Melville)

5 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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Melville is known universally for his single decade of prose, not his three and a half decades dedicated to poetry. In part, this suggests his relative achievement in the two genres. In part, our ignorance stems from the general fate of poetry as it has been almost totally displaced by the novel over the last 200 years. In the case of Clarel, the situation is even more trying: 500 pages (one of the longest poems in any language) of iambic tetrameter are not calculated for popular sale. Indeed, Melville had a growing tendency to push the average reader away especially as his works sold in inverse proportion to his growing skill. Still, this is an epic that informs us about Melville's relation with God and America's relations with religion and the old world. So if you care deeply about him or the ideas which haunt our country, you should read this best edition of the poem.

Since no one else has written about Clarel, I thought I'd be nice to Melville and congratulate him on his epic poem. Although the poetry itself isn't always brilliant, I felt that the general tone of melancholic spirituality was powerful. Essentially, to me, Clarel was about a young man questioning his world, and searching for meaning in a seemingly meaningless existence. The book parallels Melville's own travels in Jeruseleum, and with this work, we get a glimpse into Melville's interpretation of spirituality. Highly recommended, considering that it is overshadowed by that other Melville work (Moby Dick, of course!).

This is a welcome affordable version of the Northwestern U./Newberry edition of Herman Melville's one epic poem. The poem is a useful window on the views of mid-19th century American Protestants who were neither orthodox nor liberal. Science (including Darwin)(and materialism (or "Mammon")) vs. Faith and the continuing presence in Palestine of Jews, Moslems, Catholics and Greek Orthodox, and tourists (sometimes viewed almost as another sect) are among the subjects of attention for Melville's Euro-American group of pilgrims.

Negatives: 1) the story-line itself is less than gripping and is largely a device to enable the characters to conduct a series of debates.
2) this edition, if my copy is any indication, is poorly bound: five segments of about 20 pages each fell out of the binding. (Despite this fallout, the spine of the book remained uncreased.) Only the first three segments of the book (about 150 of the 530 or so pages) remained intact.