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Clarel (1876)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2010

Brian Higgins
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Chicago
Hershel Parker
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
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Summary

Boston Evening Transcript, 10 June 1876.

From the press of G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, come two handsomely printed and bound volumes, entitled “Clarel; a Poem, and a Pilgrimage in the Holy Land,” by Herman Melville. Five Hundred and seventy consecutive pages of rhymed verse are rather apt to create a disgust for poetry if one is obliged to read them conscientiously and critically. Much as we should like to attack the two volumes in question, the heat of the season compels us to forego that pleasure. We can simply testify that we know Mr. Melville to be a man of talent, who has given the world several excellent novels, and whose chances for writing a readable poem of the above length are as good as those of any one else we know of.

New York Tribune, 16 June 1876.

After a long silence, Mr. Herman Melville speaks again to the world. No more a narrator of marvelous stories of tropical life and adventure, no more a weird and half-fascinating, half-provoking writer of romance, but now as a poet with a single work, in four parts, and about 17,000 lines in length. We know already that Mr. Melville's genius has a distinctly poetical side; we remember still his stirring lines on Sheridan's Ride, commencing:

Shoe the steed with silver,

That bore him to the fray!

But the present venture is no less hazardous than ambitious.

Type
Chapter
Information
Herman Melville
The Contemporary Reviews
, pp. 529 - 542
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

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  • Clarel (1876)
  • Edited by Brian Higgins, University of Illinois, Chicago, Hershel Parker, University of Delaware
  • Book: Herman Melville
  • Online publication: 01 April 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511570445.015
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  • Clarel (1876)
  • Edited by Brian Higgins, University of Illinois, Chicago, Hershel Parker, University of Delaware
  • Book: Herman Melville
  • Online publication: 01 April 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511570445.015
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Clarel (1876)
  • Edited by Brian Higgins, University of Illinois, Chicago, Hershel Parker, University of Delaware
  • Book: Herman Melville
  • Online publication: 01 April 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511570445.015
Available formats
×