https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/historys-dick-jokes-on-melville-and-hawthorne

[ish mailian]

 An excellent essay. Witty and clever and fun. It  introduces, in
brief, how Melville criticism and scholarship developed and some of
the more titillating topics that have fascinated critics over the past
century or so.

I looked this up and I think that the use of "dick" for the penis,
sex, or an asshole (dickhead) probably came into use in America well
after the composition and publication of his novels, perhaps after his
death in 1891.

 In any event, Melville's novels are funny (i.e., queer), humorous
(i.e., funny) and Melville, a Confidence-Man sure, used his celebrity,
a Christian man who lived with exotic men and women, worked with
seamen in the sperm industry to shock, confuse, and amuse his readers.

The letters are, imho, beautiful examples of Melville's style. Is he
queer or mad? Is Walt Whitman?

While I think of it, Melville's reviews (as noted in the dick-joke
essay) are an excellent place to start, and CM chapters 14, 33, 44.





On Sun, Jan 31, 2016 at 5:42 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/historys-dick-jokes-on-melville-and-hawthorne
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l