Posted on 01/11/2017 7:07:45 AM PST by Academiadotorg
One of the speakers at this year’s Modern Language Association (MLA) meeting brought up a fascinating quote by William Wordsworth that may well be an indictment of the annual conclave of English professors: "To dissect is to murder."
If that is so, much of the professoriat at the MLA meeting could be up on assault charges. If he hadn't already passed away, Herman Melville might want to file such a complaint.
Melville, of course, is the author of Moby Dick. Many will probably recognize this as the one about a one-legged sea captain pursuing a great big whale. Yet and still, just about every year, MLA members want to read so much more into the saga.
At this year’s gathering, Paul B. Downes of the University of Toronto analogized "Ahab's revulsion towards his ivory leg to capitalism's revulsion at the source of its wealth."
In this "dialectical or deconstructionist approach," Downes avers, one can conclude that "Capitalism bites its own leg off." Michael Jonik of the University of Sussex also made note of the "multifarious political ontology in Melville's work."
For her part, Branka Arsic` of Columbia made note of "current ecological and epistemological preoccupations" in introducing the panel discussion.
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia. If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.
But you must admit, Melville had a talent for verbosity. He could pack a sentence into an entire paragraph...
Your professor, having read for years about how returning GI’s are time bombs of savage, murdering aggression as a result of their military experience, was probably too scared to respond to your astute comment!
Or vice-versa.
There are few books I haven’t been able to read all the way through, but “The Many-Headed Hydra” by Linebaugh and other is one. These guys gut Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in order to support their thesis that the American Revolution was actually the result of uprisings by small minority groups before the standard history was ever put into motion. Made Shakespeare’s story into a banal political hack-job.
Another Melville story that is ridiculous to over-analyze, beyond the simple hint in the last line. And even that might not justify further analysis.
Well, mostly my way, though... ;P
I am encouraged by your article, indicating as it does a likely openess to understanding the transgressive heart of Melville’s “Moby Dick”. I first proposed this in Alfred Kazin’s American Literature course at Berkeley during his visiting professorship there in the mid-60s. Kazin threw me out of his office before I could complete my presentation; however, I feel the modern MLA would treat it with the seriousness it deserves (perhaps while burning Kazin’s books)!
Melville’s “Moby Dick” is a masterpiece (no pun intended) of the struggle by suppressed homosexuality for fulfillment and public acceptance. Except for the title, which needs no explication, the book is heavily if rather obviously “coded” for acceptance in the nineteenth century era which regarded queerness as “The love that dare not speak its name”. Hence the need to call his central character “Ishmael” (whose name “Is Male” signifies there is no shame or unnaturaness in being gay)
For cognicenti, however, that the true subject has nothing to do with whale hunting is apparent early in the book when Ishmael, sharing a bed with Queequeg, literally “reads” the tatoos on his bedmate’s body in an obvious search for signs of a cultural background permitting or even encourageing gay lust, thus “framing” the story as a queer quest.
No such joy is to be permitted under the homophobic Captain Ahab, however, whose missing member and its “peg” replacemrnt clearly reflect the stunted, twisted sexuality of society at large -– a society whose technolgy is single mindedly devoted to exterpating that symbol of gay consumation, the Great (i.e. “Gay”) White Whale. No fewer than nine ships encountered by the Pequod in its mission have been damaged by the Gay Whilte Whale, showing that the dominant straight society views killing gayness as both serious and heroic.
In the end, of course, Moby Dick survives its encounter with Ahab, dragging the uncomplaining Captain off in the distance in what is perhaps a hint that Ahab has discovered his own suppressed gay tendencies. Ishmael is rescued and returns to the beach and sexual frustration.
Ismael and Queequeg were simply born too soon to enjoy the tolerance and freedom enjoyed by moderns -– these days they would have jumped ship, gotten married and adopted children. Moby Dick stands as a warning of the darkness into which we could all too easily return!
This is not, of course, the full paper. I await a generous MLA or University grant to enable its completion.
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