Falling Into Plato's Honey Head: Melville's Quarrel with Emersonian Idealism "This thesis will discuss the reactions of Herman Melville to the Idealism put forth in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. We know from remarks that Melville made in letters to friends and his marginal comments in his copies of Emerson's essays that Melville was bothered by some of Emerson's Idealistic assumptions and conclusions and his prescriptions for life. Emerson wrote no fiction; his lovely-sounding theories are stated only as philosophical directives. Melville had serious reservations about their applicability in real life. Many of the novels and short stories of Herman Melville can be read as reactions against Emersonian Idealism. In them, Melville puts characters who believe Emersonian philosophy into motion in a fictional world to demonstrate the disastrous consequences of following Emerson's Idealistic theories and beliefs. The first chapter gives a definition of Emersonian Idealism. The differences between American Transcendentalism and British Romanticism are explored, and Transcendentalism's uniquely American flavor--its reactions against materialism and the cold deadness of Unitarianism and its peculiar combining of Puritanism and Platonism--are examined. The second chapter lays out the five tenets of Emersonian Idealism against which Melville reacted: Emersonian optimism, individualism, attitude toward human misery and misfortune, and his belief in the beneficence of both human nature and nature itself. Chapter three explores Melville's commentary on Emersonian Idealism, epistemology, and view of life in Moby-Dick, and develops the idea that in Moby-Dick Melville is testing the tenets of Emersonian Idealism in the crucible of life aboard a whaleship. Chapter four details Melville's conclusions about the destructiveness of Emersonian Idealism: Excessive Idealism does not serve the purposes of everyday life; Idealism removes the Idealist from community and the redemptive power of love; and the Idealist loses contact with the actual, physical world and, in the process, is likely to cause irreparable damage in that world. Chapter five probes Melville's most straightforward attack on Emerson: the character of Winsome/Egbert in The Confidence-Man. Through the interaction of the Emersonian doppleganger Winsome/Egbert with the devilish Confidence-Man, Melville attacks and satirizes Emersonian theories of truth, beauty, and goodness, and savages Emersonian Self-Reliance, Spinozan ethics and his theory of Friendship. Emersonian philosophy, Melville concludes, is best left ensconced in books, not practiced in life, for to fall into "Plato's honey head," as he terms Emersonian philosophy in Moby-Dick, is to court destruction"--Document |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Falling Into Plato's Honey Head: Melville's Quarrel with Emersonian Idealism |
| Author | Judith K. Logan |
| Publisher | Eastern Washington University, 1991 |
| Length | 246 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |
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