Melville and Spenser--A Note on CriticismAuthor(s): Leon HowardSource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 46, No. 5 (May, 1931), pp. 291-292Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2913669 .

Accessed: 24/06/2014 21:18

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toModern Language Notes.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.81 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:18:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MELVILLE AND SPENSER 291

ating the impression that this part is a continuation of the narra- tive told in the first three parts. As a matter of fact, Bartram's journal ends with Part III; the rest is devoted exclusively to his observations on the Indians and constitutes an appendix.-4

N. BRYLLION FAGIN Baltimore

MIELVILLE AND SPENSER-A NOTE ON CRITICISM

When Herman Melville published The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles 1 he began each of the ten sketches with a quotation or series of quotations presenting in poetic form the pictures; that he draws in prose. Since these quotations have not been publicly identified nor has the Spenser criticism implicit in their use been pointed out, I am here attempting to do so, indicating in connection with the quotations the significant variants from the original:

Sketch I, "The Isles at Large": The Faerie Queene, bk. ia, canto xii, st. 11; st. 12, lines 7-9 (variant, 1. 8, "secure" for "recure"); I, ix, 33, lines 4-9.

Sketch ii, " Two Sides to a Tortoise": II, xii, 23, lines 1-5; II, xii, 25, lines 6-9 (variants, 1. 6, "do a man" for "did the knight"; 1. 7, "at home" for "on earth "; 1. 9,. "these isles" for "the seas "-all for the sake of appropriateness); iI, xii, 26, lines 1-3, 6, 8-9 (variants, 1. 2, "there " for " these "; 1. 8, "then " for " and "; 1. 9, " Zethy's " for "Tethys ").

Sketch III, "Rock Rodondo": n, xii, 8, lines 1-6; ii, xii, 33, lines 1-4, 8-9 (variants, 1. 8, " then " for " that "; 1. 9, " that " for " their"); II, xii, 35, lines 6-9; ii, xii, 36, lines 1-2.

Sketch Iv, "A Pisgah View from the Rocks ": I, X, 53, line 1; r, x, 55, line 1.

14 Two inaccuracies in the Van Doren text, due to faulty proofreading, may be noted, as where Bartram speaks of " faculties . . . similar to those that

. .", while the reprint speaks of "faculties . . . famiZiar to those that D . ." (Phila. ed., xx; Van Doren ed., 19). And again, lBartram speaks of the "vital principle . . . similar . . ." which is not the same thing as the reprint's "vital principle . . . fa'miliar . . ." (Phila. ed., xxi-xxii; Van Doren, 19). 'In Putnam's Monthly Magazi'ne, March, April. May, 18544; republished

in The Piazza Tales, 1856. The only reprint generally available is in Mr. Raymond Weaver's edition of the Shorter Novels of Herman Melville, which I use.

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.81 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:18:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

292 MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES, MAY, 1931

Sketch v, "The Frigate, and Ship 'Flyaway": Visions of the Worlds Vanitie, stanza 9, lines 1-4.

Sketch vi, "Barrington Isle and the Buccaneers": "Mother Elubberds Tale, lines 134-9, 168-9 (variant, 1. 135, "earth" for "world").

Sketch vii, " Charles's Isle and the Dog-King ": The Fa6rie Queene, II, ix, 13, lines 1-7 (variant, 1. 1, " so " for " loe"); Mother Hubberds Tale, lines 155-8.

Sketch vyi, "Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow": The Paerie Queene, xI, xii, 27, lines 5-9 (variant, "twoman" for "maiden "-quite necessary); a modernized adaptation of stanza two of Chatterton's "O! synge untoe mie roundelaie."

Sketch ix, "Hood's Isle and the Hermit Oberlus": Trhe Fa6rie Queene, r, ix, 35 (variant, 1. 1, "glen" for "cave"-for appropriateness); I, ix, 36, lines 1-3 (variant, 1. 2, "reads" for "was").

Sketch x, "Runaways, Castaways, Solitaires, Gravestones, etc.": I, ix, 34, lines 1-4.

It will be noted that all the verses quoted, with the exception of one stanza, are from Spenser. This, it seems to me, implies an interesting and unique criticism of the picturesque values of the Elizabethan poet's work. The selections are more than con- ventional chapter headings or captions: they are presentations in verse of the same pictures that are sketched in prose, and the close- ness of the parallel is emphasized by the fact that MIelville changed several of them slightly in order that they might correspond exactly with the actual scenes.2 Herman Melville was an authority on the picturesque whose literary appreciation was not directed by any formal tradition of reading, and when he chooses Spenser to illu- strate the sketches drawn largely from his own observations in the South Seas, he is paying a high and sincere tribute to that poet's art. Incidentally, he also gives future readers the opportunity for paying, spontaneously, the same tribute.

LEON iowARD Pomona College

2The other variants noted are usually made for the sake of transition from one quotation to another or are obvious misreadings, in some cases perhaps not on the part of Melville. My checks are based on the Oxford Spenser, and I know nothing of the text used by Melville.

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.81 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:18:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions