The War of Art

[alice wellintown]

Thanks Henry.

Some years back I read Melville's epic, _Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage
in the Holy Land_ with Ishmail (a moderated lstserv and online
discussion of Melville's works hosted by The Melville Society and run
by John Bryant of Hofstra University--I've recommend Bryant's book,
_Melville & Repose: Rhetoric of Humor in the American Renaissance_ to
Pynchon readers because the comic in Melville and in Pynchon "squeeze
hands"). At the time Parker was participating and he replied to
criticism of his huge biography. We argued all manner of issues,
including the merit of Melville's poetry, his view of the civil war,
his Battle Pieces & Co. I recall how heated these discussion got from
time to time, some scholars, including Parker, withdrew. Unfortunate,
indeed, for all involved, but I did learn that putting Melville in a
frame, or as he would describe it, a halter, is never advisable. That
said, I'll stand by my position that Melville was never in love with
war. He hated it. He did, as his letters reveal, and as his journey to
the battles prove, have a keen interest in the Civil War. If he did
not this would be a shock. His entire life was changed by it. One
could argue that he was was smitten, but this is a misreading of his
biography and his works.

Here are some studies of the matter.

Cynthia Wachtell’s   War No More:  The Antiwar Impulse in American
Literature, 1861-1914
Stanton Garner’s The Civil War World of Herman Melville
Douglas Robillard, editor. The Poems of Herman Melville


On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 7:26 AM, Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com> wrote:
> Fallen Art: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7HMz1WKkso
>
> AsB4,
> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
> Henry Mu
> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>