Melville's "Bartleby": Over the Republic, a Ciceronian Shadow

Abstract

The time was coming when neither the ped- ants nor the people would really understand Cicero.... Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean I. INTRODUCTION The lawyer-narrator of Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" remarked, of his eponymous subject, that "nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources." Many readers prefer to view the story itself as the adequate source: the narrator's leisurely account would appear to speak for itself, and the mixture of wry and pathos would call for no sophisticated interpretation. Literary critics, however, especially during the 1960's, ambitiously interpreted Melville's story. Some of this attention was inspired by the vogue for "urban" fiction, while others found in the story modish elements of alienation, or integration. And the commentary may be one upon which we can now selectively build.