Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (Writings of Herman Melville) - Hardcover

Melville

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810109069 ISBN 13: 9780810109063

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 1991

Synopsis

Melville's long poem Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (1876) was the last full-length book he published. Until the mid-twentieth century even the most partisan of Melville's advocates hesitated to endure a four-part poem of 150 cantos of almost 18,000 lines, about a naïve American named Clarel, on pilgrimage through the Palestinian ruins with a provocative cluster of companions.

But modern critics have found Clarel a much better poem than was ever realized. Robert Penn Warren called it a precursor of The Waste Land. It abounds with revelations of Melville's inner life. Most strikingly, it is argued that the character Vine is a portrait of Melville's friend Hawthorne. Based on the only edition published during Melville's lifetime, this scholarly edition adopts thirty-nine corrections from a copy marked by Melville and incorporates 154 emendations by the present editors, an also includes a section of related documents and extensive discussions.

This scholarly edition is an Approved Text of the Center for Editions of American Authors (Modern Language Association of America).

About this title

About the Author

Harrison Hayford (1916-2001) was professor of English at Northwestern University and was considered the world's most influential Melville scholar. He was general editor of the multivolume Northwestern-Newberry edition of The Writings of Herman Melville.

Edition details

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0810109069
• ISBN 13: 9780810109063
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 893