bibliographing

My maritime theme has led to an unusual number of literary reassessments on my part. I unexpectedly enjoyed The Odyssey, altered my general thoughts on travel writing based on several sailors’ narratives, and completely changed my opinion of The Old Man and the Sea. And now I’ve had to reassess Nathaniel Hawthorne, too.
Hawthorne is another [...]

I mentioned on Sunday that I had re-read The Old Man and the Sea and had a completely different reaction to it than I did years ago when I read it in high school. Then it had seemed tedious and inaccessible. Something about an old man in Cuba going fishing was just too far away [...]

Something that’s surprised me in maritime lit is how small the world of 19th century sailing seems to be. Benito Cereno hangs around the same islands as The Essex. Everyone stops in the same Chilean ports. And of course everyone is from Nantucket.
Captain Amasa Delano, the inspiration for Captain Amasa Delano, also shows up in [...]

I really think anyone interested in reading about the Essex should read this little Penguin Classics edition I have. Chase’s narrative and Nickerson’s narrative are both wonderful, and Nathaniel and Thomas Philbrick (or the editors) have also dug up several other interesting documents. Several letters, and the notes Melville made in his edition of the [...]

Thomas Nickerson sailed on the Essex along with Owen Chase. He was 14 years old when they left Nantucket and it was his first whaling voyage. He too survived the Essex wreck, returned to Nantucket, and in his old age wrote a series of “Desultory Sketches” detailing the voyage. His manuscript was lost and was [...]

This week, my maritime reading has been a bit disruptive. A few things I’m reading are journals and briefer narratives, which lend themselves to dipping in and out of. I’ve read Owen Chase’s narrative about the Essex but still have to get to Thomas Nickerson’s, for example. But I’m enjoying it all.
Yesterday I re-read The [...]

Like Benito Cereno, Moby-Dick was also inspired by real-life events. In this case, it was the story of the whale ship Essex that Melville incorporated into the novel. The Essex was attacked by a sperm whale while hunting in the South Pacific—rammed twice, in fact—and sunk. The crew was able to escape on the three [...]

Benito Cereno is, like so much of what I am reading now, an unbelievable-but-true maritime story. (As Margaret Cohen put it, “blue-water events are strange and therefore true”; this would have to be the most prevalent theme I have encountered so far.) The novel (novella? short novel? short story?) gives the story of Amasa Delano, [...]

Fun study, via Robin Hanson. Abstract:
The current research investigated the psychological differences between protagonists and antagonists in literature and the impact of these differences on readers. It was hypothesized that protagonists would embody cooperative motives and behaviors that are valued by egalitarian hunter-gatherers groups, whereas antagonists would demonstrate status-seeking and dominance behaviors that are stigmatized [...]

“Of Salutation”:
From these courteous Salutations Observe in generall: There is a favour of civility and courtesie even amongst these wild Americans, both amongst themselves and towards strangers.
More particular:
1. The Courteous Pagan shall condemne Uncourteous Englishmen,
Uncourteous Englishmen,
Who live like Foxes, Beares and Wolves,
Or Lyon in his Den.
2. Let none sing blessings to their soules,
For that they [...]