۱۴۰۳ فروردین ۲۲, چهارشنبه

 CALL ME SJ. HE/HIM. 30S. I LIKE GHOSTS, ANIMALS, SEA SHANTIES, AND SHIRTS WITH BIG SLEEVES. I TALK A LOT ABOUT MY COMICS/WRITING, AND I WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT 19TH C AMERICAN WHALING HISTORY IF YOU OPEN THE DOOR. I POST ALL MY ART HERE TOO.

TAG LIST ASK a QUESTION MY WEBCOMIC MY ART STORE HOME

NOVEMBER 25, 2022 with 131 NOTES
        tags: ASKS. ANONYMOUS.

Please say more about bi/gay herman melville? 👀

asked by anonymous

Yeah, okay! I’m putting this under a readmore cos there’s book excerpts and letters and he's…a Verbose man. It’s so long lol. Enjoy.

The lowest hanging fruit is of course the homoeroticism in Moby-Dick, such as in his various descriptions of Ishmael and Queequeg’s relationship early on in the book. It’s that relationship in which Ishmael’s character is built and developed, and it’s at the culmination of that relationship when Ishmael as a character slips into the background and becomes more of an abstract narrator, because his growth arc is completed. A relationship characterized with such entries as:

“Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg’s arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife.“

and

"He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country’s phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be.”

and

“How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cosy, loving pair.”

There’s also the cheeky jerk off pun that Melville makes for an entire chapter about sticking his hands in spermaceti to squeeze the solids out (a thing that….Wasn’t Actually Done as a process on whaleships)

“Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”

Among his other works, there’s the novella Billy Budd, that was left unfinished when he died and was published a few decades after his death. A common interpretation is that the central conflict between Billy and Claggart (along with the counterpoint of Captain Vere) is an exploration of homosexuality, particularly in being trapped between the heterosexual binds of society and the male-centric space of a ship (and thus the torment of it in 19th c society). Unlike the fondness of Ishmael and Queequeg, this is one of hostile conflict, with entries like:

“When Claggart’s unobserved glance happened to light on belted Billy rolling along the upper gun deck in the leisure of the second dog-watch, exchanging passing broadsides of fun with other young promenaders in the crowd; that glance would follow the cheerful sea-Hyperion with a settled meditative and melancholy expression, his eyes strangely suffused with incipient feverish tears. Then would Claggart look like the man of sorrows. Yes, and sometimes the melancholy expression would have in it a touch of soft yearning, as if Claggart could even have loved Billy but for fate and ban. But this was an evanescence, and quickly repented of, as it were, by an immitigable look, pinching and shrivelling the visage into the momentary semblance of a wrinkled walnut.”

But like many who point to evidence of mlmelville, I find Melville’s letters to Hawthorne the most telling about the depth of feeling he had towards another man (that I also think have a very sexual energy too).

I’ve often called Moby-Dick ‘hundreds of pages of a man unraveling his soul in front of you’. It’s a book about railing against the things that bind a person’s life, be it mortality, or god, or society, and Melville really seemed to be a pretty tormented fellow in this respect (and seems like he made it everyone else’s problem too, looking at his own family life). And he dedicated Moby-Dick to Hawthorne.

In the summer of 1850 Melville meets Nathaniel Hawthorne while on vacation in Pittsfield. He was already somewhat taken by his writings, having read Mosses from an Old Manse and written an anonymous review (where he also assumes the alias of a reader from Virginia) that already had such eroticisms as ‘But already I feel that this Hawthorne has dropped germinous seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further, and further, shoots his strong New-England roots into the hot soil of my Southern soul’. He forms an immediate friendship with Hawthorne, to the point that Melville impulsively buys property in the area within a month, and packs up his family’s life to live there instead of New York (with his family having little agency in the decision).

Upon acquiring this home he sends a playful letter asking Hawthorne to visit him, the italics his own:

That side-blow thro’ Mrs Hawthorne will not do. I am not to be charmed out of my promised pleasure by any of that lady’s syrenisms. You, Sir, I hold accountable, & the visit (in all its original integrity) must be made. – What! spend the day, only with us? – A Greenlander might as well talk of spending the day with a friend, when the day is only half an inch long.

As I said before, my best travelling chariot on runners, will be at your door, & provision made not only for the accomodation of all your family, but also for any quantity of baggage.

Fear not that you will cause the slightest trouble to us. Your bed is already made, & the wood marked for your fire. But a moment ago, I looked into the eyes of two fowls, whose tail feathers have been notched, as destined victims for the table. I keep the word “Welcome” all the time in my mouth, so as to be ready on the instant when you cross the threshold.

(By the way the old Romans you know had a Salve carved in their thresholds)

Another thing, Mr Hawthorne – Do not think you are coming to any prim nonsensical house – that is nonsensical in the ordinary way. You must be much bored with punctilios. You may do what you please – say or say not what you please. And if you feel any inclination for that sort of thing – you may spend the period of your visit in bed, if you like – every hour of your visit.

Mark – There is some excellent Montado Sherry awaiting you & some most potent port. We will have mulled wine with wisdom, & buttered toast with story-telling & crack jokes & bottles from morning till night.

Come – no nonsence. If you dont – I will send Constables after you.

On Wednesday then – weather & sleighing permitting I will be down for you about eleven o'clock A.M.

By the way – should Mrs Hawthorne for any reason conclude that she, for one, can not stay overnight with us – then you must – & the children, if you please.

H. Melville

He also writes emotional meditative ones. When he was troubled with writing his Whale, he discussed his writing woes to Hawthorne, along with his hopes of an afterlife picnic between just the two of them to shrug it all off:

“What I feel most moved to write, that is banned, – it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches. I’m rather sore, perhaps, in this letter, but see my hand! – four blisters on this palm, made by hoes and hammers within the last few days. It is a rainy morning; so I am indoors, and all work suspended. I feel cheerfully disposed, and therefore I write a little bluely. Would the Gin were here! If ever, my dear Hawthorne, in the eternal times that are to come, you and I shall sit down in Paradise, in some little shady corner by ourselves; and if we shall by any means be able to smuggle a basket of champagne there (I won’t believe in a Temperance Heaven), and if we shall then cross our celestial legs in the celestial grass that is forever tropical, and strike our glasses and our heads together, till both musically ring in concert, – then, O my dear fellow-mortal, how shall we pleasantly discourse of all the things manifold which now so distress us, – when all the earth shall be but a reminiscence, yea, its final dissolution an antiquity. Then shall songs be composed as when wars are over; humorous, comic songs, – “Oh, when I lived in that queer little hole called the world,” or, “Oh, when I toiled and sweated below,” or, “Oh, when I knocked and was knocked in the fight” – yes, let us look forward to such things. Let us swear that, though now we sweat, yet it is because of the dry heat which is indispensable to the nourishment of the vine which is to bear the grapes that are to give us the champagne hereafter.”

When Hawthorne read Moby Dick and wrote a favorable letter about it to Melville, Melville replied in a way that is…undeniably emotionally and physically intense, and I think speaks of much more than just admiration of a fellow writer’s work.

“My Dear Hawthorne, – People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward; but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day’s work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably – why, then I don’t think I deserve any reward for my hard day’s work – for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good? My peace and my supper are my reward, my dear Hawthorne. So your joy-giving and exultation-breeding letter is not my reward for my ditcher’s work with that book, but is the good goddess’s bonus over and above what was stipulated – for not one man in five cycles, who is wise, will expect appreciative recognition from his fellows, or any one of them. Appreciation! Recognition! Is love appreciated? Why, ever since Adam, who has got to the meaning of this great allegory – the world? Then we pygmies must be content to have our paper allegories but ill comprehended. I say your appreciation is my glorious gratuity. In my proud, humble way, – a shepherd-king, – I was lord of a little vale in the solitary Crimea; but you have now given me the crown of India. But on trying it on my head, I found it fell down on my ears, notwithstanding their asinine length – for it’s only such ears that sustain such crowns.

Your letter was handed me last night on the road going to Mr. Morewood’s, and I read it there. Had I been at home, I would have sat down at once and answered it. In me divine maganimities are spontaneous and instantaneous – catch them while you can. The world goes round, and the other side comes up. So now I can’t write what I felt. But I felt pantheistic then – your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God’s. A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome’s Pantheon. It is a strange feeling – no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content – that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination. I speak now of my profoundest sense of being, not of an incidental feeling.

Whence come you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips – lo, they are yours and not mine. I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling. Now, sympathizing with the paper, my angel turns over another page. you did not care a penny for the book. But, now and then as you read, you understood the pervading thought that impelled the book – and that you praised. Was it not so? You were archangel enough to despise the imperfect body, and embrace the soul. Once you hugged the ugly Socrates because you saw the flame in the mouth, and heard the rushing of the demon, – the familiar, – and recognized the sound; for you have heard it in your own solitudes.

My dear Hawthorne, the atmospheric skepticisms steal into me now, and make me doubtful of my sanity in writing you thus. But, believe me, I am not mad, most noble Festus! But truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning. Farewell. Don’t write a word about the book. That would be robbing me of my miserly delight. I am heartily sorry I ever wrote anything about you – it was paltry. Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. So,now, let us add Moby Dick to our blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish; – I have heard of Krakens.

This is a long letter, but you are not at all bound to answer it. Possibly, if you do answer it, and direct it to Herman Melville, you will missend it – for the very fingers that now guide this pen are not precisely the same that just took it up and put it on this paper. Lord, when shall we be done changing? Ah! it’s a long stage, and no inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold. But with you for a passenger, I am content and can be happy. I shall leave the world, I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality.

What a pity, that, for your plain, bluff letter, you should get such gibberish! Mention me to Mrs. Hawthorne and to the children, and so, good-by to you, with my blessing.
Herman.

P.S. I can’t stop yet. If the world was entirely made up of Magians, I’ll tell you what I should do. I should have a paper-mill established at one end of the house, and so have an endless riband of foolscap rolling in upon my desk; and upon that endless riband I should write a thousand – a million – billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you. The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet responds. Which is the biggest? A foolish question – they are One.
H.

P.P.S. Don’t think that by writing me a letter, you shall always be bored with an immediate reply to it – and so keep both of us delving over a writing-desk eternally. No such thing! I sh'n’t always answer your letters, and you may do just as you please.“

At some point, for reasons unknown, Melville and Hawthorne’s communications with each other cool and drop off. Hawthorne abruptly moves away from Pittsfield by autumn of 1851, though in the years that follow their paths occasionally cross. It’s also unknown what Hawthorne’s letters said to Melville over that year, as they’ve been either lost or destroyed (which I think is a very telling story in itself).

At an unknown date, Melville wrote a poem mourning the death of a man whose identity isn’t known. While there is debate, many connect it to Hawthorne due to the motifs he uses and the nature of the relatioship expressed here, and as such some believe it may have been written after Melville visited Hawthorne’s grave in 1864. It wouldn’t be published until the last year of Melville’s life however, in 1891 (which again….I think can be a telling story)

‘To have known him, to have loved him
After loneness long;
And then to be estranged in life,
And neither in the wrong;
And now for death to set his seal
—Ease me, a little ease, my song!

By wintry hills his hermit-mound
The sheeted snow-drifts drape,
And houseless there the snow-bird flits
Beneath the fir-tree’s crape:
lazed now with ice the cloistral vine
That hid the shyest grape.’

Anyway, anyone who tries to say that Herman Melville didn’t have a strong emotional/physical attraction to men is reaching way more than those who say otherwise. It’s all there.

Also if you’re interested in a fictional exploration of Melville and Hawthorne’s relationship (though one that is grounded in the evidence of these letters), I recommend Mark Beauregard’s book, The Whale. It’s fun. It’s melodramatic but in a way that feels very…..Melville.

  1. tossittothevoid reblogged this from focsle
  2. books-and-sadness reblogged this from focsle
  3. peachpulpeuse reblogged this from focsle
  4. greentigerr reblogged this from focsle
  5. big-flrda-kys reblogged this from focsle
  6. aroacevaljean reblogged this from focsle
  7. vinyl0s reblogged this from focsle
  8. odysseusodysseus reblogged this from focsle
  9. robocloaca reblogged this from plum-soup
  10. plum-soup reblogged this from focsle
  11. focsle posted this
    Please say more about bi/gay herman melville? 👀...Yeah, okay! I'm putting this under a...
  12. theglintoftherail reblogged this from focsle
  13. luncheon-aspic reblogged this from focsle
  14. mikithewooloo reblogged this from gravedirtt
  15. gravedirtt reblogged this from pudentilla
  16. writedrunk reblogged this from focsle
  17. pudentilla reblogged this from focsle
  18. ptork66 reblogged this from bladeverbena
  19. djeheuty-bros reblogged this from focsle
  20. focsle reblogged this from focsle
  21. lanternheart reblogged this from focsle
  22. bladeverbena reblogged this from focsle
  23. stargazingblockhead reblogged this from focsle
  24. newkillerstarkid reblogged this from focsle
  25. the-brolliologist reblogged this from focsle
 

Centennial Theme by Each & Every. Powered by Tumblr.

ارسال شده توسط در