Was herman melville gay
Pieces of God
The Homosexual Love Letters of Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne
Excerpts from My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries (1998), Edited by Rictor Norton
The relations between Herman Melville (1819–91) and his wife were never very good; the first novel published after his wedding, Mardi (1849) is a celebration of the intimate friendship of two men, and equates marriage with suicide. When his son Stanwix was born, Melville on the birth certificate accidentally identified the mother as his control mother � this was when he was writing his novel Pierre, which is explicitly faithful to themes of incest. Melville's wide-ranging sea adventures made him familiar with homosexuality at first hand. His maiden voyage as a cabin boy from New York to Liverpool in 1837, when he was seventeen, was the basis of his novel Redburn in which we locate gay elements in the characters of Jackson and Bolton. During a voyage to the South Seas in 1841–2, Melville jumped ship in the Marquessas Islands with his friend Richard Tobias Greene AveDementia21 Yeah, but weren’t they spooning naked? I don’t understand how two dudes spooning naked isn’t considered homoerotic…especially in the morning… Rubystreak22 *Originally posted by RealityChuck * I don’t think you can say this with the degree of absolute finality that you hold. I think Melville’s choice of words definitely allude strongly to a homoerotic subtext. There is ample textual evidence to support such a reading, and a little analyze into Melville’s biography and other works also lends evidence to this reading. You’re assuming Melville was writing in the 21st century. He was not and it would hardly be his intention to portray an unnatural and perverted crime against God in a novel that was intended to be a popular bestseller.* No, I do not believe that. It is you who are assuming: that no one talked about homosexuality then, that no one wrote about it, and that everyone mind of it as a perverted crime against nature. Interpret some Walt Whitman or Oscar Wilde and tell me that none of Melville’s literary contemporaries addr Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast loose the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship. “What now?” said the Guernsey-man, when the captain had returned to them. “Why, let me see; yes, you may as adv tell him now that—that—in fact, tell him I’ve diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody else.” “He says, Monsieur, that he’s very happy to have been of any service to us.” Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties (meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting Stubb down into his cabin to cocktail a bottle of Bordeaux. “He wants you to grab a glass of wine with him,” said the interpreter. “Thank him heartily; but tell him it’s against my principles to swig with the man I’ve diddled. In fact, relate him I must go.” “He says, Monsieur, that his principles won’t admit of his drinking; but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur had best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales, for it’s so calm they won’t drift.”
Homoeroticsm in Moby Dick?
There’s no homoerotic subtext in the book. It’s just on the part of the readers. Was Herman Melville gay?
Diddled: cheated, swindled
Happily for the more prudish professors of literature, the known knowledge of Herman Melville's life unveil nothing so scandalous as an overtly homosexual liaison. One can, however, suggest with some certainty that Melville was "confused." For example, when his son Stanwix was born, Melville on the birth certificate accidentally identified his own mother as the mother of his son. This was when he was writing Pierre, a novel patently devoted to themes of incest. Relations with his wife were never very good; the first book published after his wedding, Mardi (1849) is a celebration of the intimate friendship of two men, and equates marriage with suicide. Incestuous mix-ups (which Melville himself linked with homosexuality) and misogyny (which many people link with male homosexuality), are the two rather negative factors taken into account when assessing Melville's erotic makeup. But frankly these two themes do not do