building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

America, or the Israel of our time
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With these opening words Herman Melville began Moby Dick, one of his bestknown
novels, unanimously recognized today as a masterpiece of American
literature of the nineteenth century. The book, also known in the English‐speaking
world with the subtitle The Whale, was published for the first time in London in
October 1851, printed by the editor Richard Bentley. The American edition,
published by Harper & Brothers, New York, came out the following month.
Melville recounts the voyage of the whaler Pequod and the adventures of its crew
members led by the legendary and notorious Captain Achab.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago ‐ never mind how long precisely ‐
having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest
me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part
of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating
the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth;
whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find
myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up
the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get
such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to
prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically
knocking people's hats off then, I account it high time to get to sea as
soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a
philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take
to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost
all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the
same feelings toward the ocean with me. 102
Long sea voyages had inspired and marked the life of Melville, a central figure in the
intellectual life of the Nineteenth century. In 1929, Lewis Mumford himself, a
careful observer of American cultural experiences and literary critic, dedicated a
study 103 to him. Melville is, in fact, one of those key elements who contributed to
102 MELVILLE, Herman, Moby‐Dick or, the Whale, London‐Bombay‐Sidney, Constable and Company
Ltd, 1922 , p. 1 [first ed. 1851] (it. tr. edited by Cesare Pavese, Moby Dick o la Balena , Milano,
Adelphi, 2004, p. 1)
103 MUMFORD, Lewis, Herman Melville, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1929 (Italian translation
by Loretta Valtz Mannucci, Herman Melville, Milano, Ed. di Comunità, 1965); see by same author The
Golden Day: A Study of American Architecture and Civilization, New York, Boni and Liveright, 1926
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