Melville's Redburn: Initiation and Authority
1973; The MIT Press; Volume: 46; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/364815
ISSN1937-2213
Autores Tópico(s)Contemporary Literature and Criticism
ResumoRECENT criticism of Melville's Redburn, when it has not been simply concerned with gauging achievement of novel, has involved itself in a debate which illuminates not only Redburn but also certain general and almost unconscious tendencies in American literary criticism. On one hand, there are those who agree with Newton Arvin's reading of Redburn, which asserts that its inward subject is of innocence into evil. On other, there are those critics, represented by James Schroeter, who argue that the difficulty with mythic method, certainly as applied to Redburn, is... that it is contradicted repeatedly by some of most important tonal and structural features of novel.' It is intention of this essay to argue that while action and tone of Redburn carefully limit implications of such terms as innocence, evil, and initiation, they do not dismiss terms, which remain essential to meaning. Moreover, debate whether or not Redburn is a novel of initiation is generated more by certain critical assumptions than by any intrinsic peculiarity or ambiguity in novel. For not only have American critics tended to find the of innocence into evil in nearly every work of American literature, they have also tended to agree in viewing as a metaphysical process. It has been characteristic of Melville criticism, in particular, to view theme of as a ladle with which to stir up once again problem of evil-the metaphysical altercation between innate virtue and original sin.
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