Bartleby the Scrivener - Melville, Herman
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Literary scholars have been analyzing Bartleby the Scrivener ever since Putnam's Monthly Magazine published the story in its November and December 1853 issues. And they psycho-analyze Melville the author as well, for he either purely imagined and created Bartleby-or maybe lifted him from a newspaper article he had read-or composited certain teachings of Jesus Christ into a Bartleby person-or symbolized his own emotional reaction to the departure of neighbor, mentor and dear friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, who had recently moved away. Theories have continued to proliferate in literary circles about…mehr

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Produktbeschreibung
Literary scholars have been analyzing Bartleby the Scrivener ever since Putnam's Monthly Magazine published the story in its November and December 1853 issues. And they psycho-analyze Melville the author as well, for he either purely imagined and created Bartleby-or maybe lifted him from a newspaper article he had read-or composited certain teachings of Jesus Christ into a Bartleby person-or symbolized his own emotional reaction to the departure of neighbor, mentor and dear friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, who had recently moved away. Theories have continued to proliferate in literary circles about the origin(s) and constitution of Bartleby, but none have risen above theory, leaving everyday readers free to reflect on the Bartleby puzzle and decide for ourselves just what this amazing character represents, or even, if we are so inclined, to research Melville and guess how Bartleby came to be. Here are two clues. First, the story originally came with- and sometimes still carries-a subtitle: A Story of Wall Street. Second, when Herman Melville went to work on Bartleby, he was in a bad state of mind. Despite enjoying early success as an author, his masterpiece, Moby Dick, had flopped in 1851. Many critics, mainly American, did not like it, and not many readers anywhere were buying it. His follow- up novel, Pierre, fared even worse in both ways. Melville's future as a financially secure writer was thus in jeopardy, and family members were pressuring him to do better or find a new occupation. Melville was a highly skilled, diligent author who knew the degree of his talent and the huge amount of effort he expended in bringing his novels to completion. With the rejection of his latest work, growing doubts about his talent, and pressure to do better financially, Melville probably developed a huge distaste for the business of publishing, or even the business of business, a distaste perhaps signaled by the Wall Street setting and the story's subtitle. Was the skilled and diligent worker Bartleby standing in for Melville when he rebuffed his Wall Street employer who was telling him to check over his work? Perhaps Melville's Bartleby was simply rebelling against the insensibility of the marketplace, a money-culture oblivious to all except accumulating anything and everything in the easiest way possible. Why wouldn't Melville, a hard-working genius who had just created a masterpiece that was rejected in the marketplace, respond by creating a character who snubs Wall Street, a symbol of the culture that had discounted and rejected him? Seems as possible as anything else.
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Autorenporträt
Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819. What muse possessed him at various times in his life cannot be known, but he was never mad. Believe him, for numerous times he denied that he was anything of the sort when critics, even family, would claim that he was crazy. He should be believed. Herman Melville did not practice deception, and there is no persuasive evidence to suggest he did not know his own mind. He began his literary career in 1846 and immediately succeeded, critically and financially, competently reporting on things he learned while working on sailing ships and visiting islands in the southern Pacific seas. Yet he could not maintain that literary success, despite developing unreal creative skills and producing some of the greatest fiction ever written. Only posthumously did his legendary novel Moby Dick achieve the fame it now holds and will forever retain. Since he didn't maintain his status as a successful author, scholars paid no mind to Melville until well after his death on September 28, 1891. Then, after Moby Dick began becoming quite the thing in 1917, Melville did too, largely achieving greatness not because he was mad, but because it seemed that he was. Scholars learned only in retrospect that Melville mused and wrote obsessively, and he would easily choose wide readership over prosperity if such a choice had to be made. If that seems crazy, then perhaps he was. Muses are always unique, though often various in one individual. The musical muse that possessed Melville when his creative powers peaked was akin to those inhabiting Shakespeare and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Both masters exerted much influence over him, one in retrospect and the other as a true friend and confidant. He deeply studied both creative masters, especially the musicality of their expression. Although the music of Shakespeare and Hawthorne doubtlessly did influence Melville, the marvelous prose rhythms he composed were allhis own. He certainly did excel with both as a sweetly melodic author, tribute enough, but what made him stand alone and seem mad to many had almost everything to do with the mysterious muse that aided his invention of character. Within the character of Captain Ahab, Pierre, Bartleby, and many more, Melville implanted peculiar traits like no other author before or since. There was nothing archetypical or stereotypical about the characters in Melville's novels and stories. At the same time, he also stood out by dignifiying the character of Blacks-like Ismael in Moby Dick-at a time when virtually all other authors would not. Melville's kind of craziness ultimately earned him the wide readership he coveted plus an esteemed literary reputation right alongside literary history's greatest authors-most of whom lived to enjoy their just desserts. All of this easily could be the denoument of a storyline Melville might have obsessively contemplated, crazily developed, and beautifully composed. But then again, perhaps he has, or yet will, in an afterlife of his own design.
Herman Melville
Rezensionen
"I ve always been haunted by Bartleby, the proto-slacker. But it s the handsomely minimalist cover of the Melville House edition that gets me here, one of many in the small publisher s fine 'Art of the Novella' series."
The New Yorker

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Time Out London

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KQED (NPR San Francisco)

"Some like it short, and if you're one of them, Melville House, an independent publisher based in Brooklyn, has a line of books for you... elegant-looking paperback editions ...a good read in a small package."
The Wall Street Journal