The Tellers and the Tales: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville

Abstract

Raymona A. Hull. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The English Experience, 1853-1864. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980.307 + xvi pp. David Ketterer. The Rationale of Deception in Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. 285 + xv pp. G.R. Thompson and Virgil L. Lokke, eds. Ruined Eden of the Present: Hawthorne, Melville and Poe. Critical Essays in Honor of Barrel Abel. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1981. 383 + xix pp. Arlin Turner. Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Biography. New York : Oxford University Press, 1980. 457 + xiv pp. It is now nearly a quarter of a century since Harry Levin's droll observation (in The Power of Blackness) that the academic study of Melville had replaced the whaling industry as the principal activity of New England. The inter- vening years have done nothing to reverse the process. "Save the Whales" buttons proliferate, but the notes of "Woodman, Spare that Tree" are sounded less these days. The lumber room in which even Moby-Dick was locked up for seventy-five years has now been fully opened for inspection, and even Clarel dusted off for a masterpiece. The Godhead is broken up like the bread of the Supper, and Melville's works are the pieces.