Concerning the significance of American Literature: When Herman Melville publishes Moby-Dick, this nation is but 75 years
old—can we believe a nation might produce its “great classic” in just 75
years? This indicates a deeper question:
Is America old enough to have classics at all?
Any American novel has not yet stood the test of time,
considering the age-old literary legacy with which it means to converse. As a student of American letters—a student by
necessity, because I love this nation’s literature—I advocate a sterner
test. I do not mean to diminish time’s aptitude
for sifting chaff (in many cases, I await it eagerly), I only wish to clarify a
measurement by which the reader can rest assured that great new books will stand the test of time, time being
allowed. The test of time is but a
secondary proof.
To argue this, I will consider Dante’s The Divine Comedy, a chief influence of Melville’s. Dante’s introduction, via Virgil, to Homer,
Horace, Ovid, and Lucan in Canto Four of Inferno
is widely known, and his admission as a sixth in that personified library
inspires not a few knowing nods. This
authorial choice may well be a form of medieval marketing, yet in such a work,
one cannot dismiss it as merely advantageous to the author. In this scene, Dante signifies, quite
consciously and unmistakably, what he intends his text to be: another Great Epic,
in the model of the past. And, time
makes plain, it is just that! So how, in
1308, can Dante know his epic poem will stand beside that of his ancient
maestro-poet? How, if not by some means
other than the test of time?
One might reply, any madman can write “I am Homer” on a
page, yet only one has stood the test.
Of the others who have done this, we will never know.
Another scene—one of my favorites—more deeply answers the
matter. Beatrice’s stern rebuke of Dante,
at the close of Purgatorio, contains
what I consider to be the greatest moral lesson in the poem. Her admonishment reduces thus: love what lasts forever. Consider her words:
“…But by the bounteous gifts of
divine grace—
whose rain descends from
mists of such great height,
blest eyes themselves
cannot approach that place—
[Dante] was so disposed in his new
life
that every natural
habit, turned to good,
should have been put to
wondrous proof in him,
But when bad seed is sown in a rich
field
or when earth full of
vigor lies untilled,
the thornier and more
harmful is its yield.
For a time I sustained him with my
sight:
showing to him my
youthful eyes, I led him
and turned him with me
toward the true and right.
But once I stood upon the threshold
of
my second age,
exchanging life for life,
he took himself from me
and gave his love
To someone else. From flesh to spirit I rose
and found less favor in
his eyes, although
I’d grown more beautiful
and virtuous.
He turned his steps along a way not
true,
pursuing the false
images of good,
which promise all and
never follow through.”
(Trans. Anthony Esolen. The Modern Library Classics.)
This provides a final explanation of Dante’s beginning lost
in a dark wood (see Melville’s Ishmael, blog post #4). Beatrice’s reproach—love what lasts
forever—requires Dante to have loved immediately her “youthful eyes” and to
have maintained that love even after she has parted from the world. Beatrice, throughout the text, signifies Beauty
itself: the object of every poet. She is
Eurydice to his lyric Orpheus. He must
love her absent as well as present, and
from the first. By his first true
love of Beauty, Dante can distinguish what is lasting from the “false images of
good.”
Thus, Dante not only can perceive the lasting good, but he
must—even in its youth. Beauty requires
it. Greatness in a novel offers and
requires the same. Melville knows what
he’s doing when he begins: “Call me Ishmael.”
A story so begun, in the hands of a master, cannot fail to stand the
test of time. I guarantee it. This is the beauty of truth, that its
goodness might be loved, even in its youth.
This blog intends to do so.
One more point remains to ground this novel firmly on this youthful
nation, firmly rooted in the past’s great literature, and blooming with an
equal greatness. From then on, all is
loving Beauty and a story’s power to convey.
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