The Cosmic Drama of Melville’s Mardi

Abstract

THE COSMIC DRAMA OF MELVILLE’S MARDI B R E T T ZIM M E R M A N York University In Mardi, Melville uses his well-known knowledge of astronomy both for symbolic and allegorical purposes.1 Here we shall examine the cosmic alle­ gory of Mardi-. Taji and his entourage are space-travellers voyaging within the Milky Way galaxy through a plurality of worlds. For the most part, Melville uses this literary device to explore the idea of cultural relativism, and to satirize humanity’s sense of self-importance. But the Mardian uni­ verse is filled not only with myriads of extra-terrestrial physical existences, but also with myriads of essences—for the old Neoplatonic Great Chain of Being forms part of the cosmological-metaphysical vision of the book. Taji’s fanatical otherworldliness can be understood within the context of this ancient philosophical idea. Like his alter-ego Lombardo writing his “Koztanza,” Melville “ransacked the etherial [sic] spheres” (3:597) to give us Mardi. I Scholars have long realized that Mardi is composed of several layers of ac­ tion and meaning. On one level— what I call the “obvious” level— the book concerns a sea-voyage undertaken by the narrator (eventually to be called “Taji” ) and various travelling companions to, and through, the islands of a Pacific archipelago called “Mardi.” On another level, however, beginning at Chapter 145, Taji and friends are sailing over the entire planet, visit­ ing several countries along the way, such as America (Vivenza) and Canada (Kanneeda). At this level “Mardi” is the planet Earth. But “Hark ye yet again,—the little lower layer,” as Ahab says; and the deeper-diving reader will find another stratum in which Taji and his entourage are astronauts ( “star-sailors” ) crossing the ocean of outer space. At this layer of action and meaning “Mardi” is the whole galaxy.2 The astronomical allegory comes into play right at the beginning of the book. Melville’s preference for the name Arcturion over Leviathan—the name of the whaler in Omoo, the adventures of which were supposed to continue in Mardi— can be cited as the first evidence. He chose to call the vessel in Mardi Arcturion, which sounds so much like “Arcturus” (the brightest star in the constellation Bootes), because we are meant to associate the ship with the star; and here is the first correspondence in Melville’s E n g l is h St u d i e s in C a n a d a , x v i , 4 , D e c e m b e r 1990 grand cosmic allegory: Arcturus the ship and Arcturus the stellar world. Hennig Cohen, in his foreword to Moore’s That Lonely Game, also shows his awareness of the association when he writes of “the starry Arcturion” (xvii); as does William B. Dillingham, in An Artist in the Rigging (113). Gordon Mills has written on “The Significance of ‘Arcturus’ in Mardi” as well. He suggests that the idea of using that star in his third book came to Melville from the magazine Arcturus, published by his friends the Duyckincks from 1840 to 1842. In the prologue to the first number the editors write of “the inhabitants of Arcturus. . . . ” Here we find the doctrine of the plurality of worlds; more important, however, the narrator of Mardi is in fact one of those Arcturian inhabitants, and he is voyaging through space. When Taji first encounters Yillah he considers that she will regard him “as some frigid stranger from the Arctic Zone . . . ” (3:142). The Latin root of “Arcturus” is “arctos,” which means “North Pole,” or “North” ; and, of course, the star is in the northern hemisphere not too far from the North Star. In this way, then, Taji is from the Arctic zone, being from Arcturus. The tale commences with a restless narrator aching to get away from the Arcturion, for he finds the voyage “exceedingly dull.” If we see him as an Arcturian we should not be surprised at his intense boredom; for Arcturus, like all stars, seems to revolve around the Pole Star in the nighttime sky— and Arcturus has been engaged in its “eternally” circular voyage for hundreds of...