Three American Poets

by Herman Melville, Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, Edwin Arlington Robinson

A unique collection of poems from three writers living under the shadow of the Civil War

Three great American poets, all of whom preferred the solitary life, and yet each responded, in very different ways, to the greatest social event of their the challenge of living in a country recovering from civil war. The selection from Melville aims to show the range of his shorter verse, from the public poet intensely concerned with the Civil War and its meaning for humanity, to the private poet, as he withdrew from the eyes of the world. Robinson's quintessential and much anthologised famous poems can be read set alongside the less widely-read pieces also included here. Tuckerman is a neglected poet, whose poems reflect his friendship with Tennyson and his grief for the loss of his wife."

304 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 2003

About the author

There is more than one author with this name.

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet associated with the American Renaissance literary movement. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851), Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia, and Billy Budd, Sailor, a novella published posthumously. By the time of his death, Melville had largely faded from public recognition. However, the centenary of his birth in 1919 marked the beginning of a literary revival, and Moby-Dick eventually came to be regarded as one of the greatest American novels.

Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant. His father's death in 1832 left the family in severe financial difficulties. In 1839, Melville went to sea as an ordinary sailor aboard a merchant vessel and later joined the whaling ship Acushnet. He eventually deserted the ship in the Marquesas Islands. His first book, Typee, and its sequel, Omoo (1847), were adventure narratives based on his experiences among the peoples of the Pacific islands. Their success brought him financial security and enabled him to marry Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of the Boston jurist Lemuel Shaw.

With Mardi (1849), a romantic adventure novel and his first work of fiction not directly based on his own experiences, Melville began moving towards more ambitious literary subjects. The book was poorly received. His subsequent novels, Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), both drew on his experiences as a young man at sea. Although they received respectable reviews, neither achieved sufficient commercial success to support his growing family.

Melville's increasingly ambitious literary vision culminated in Moby-Dick (1851), which took nearly a year and a half to write. The novel initially failed to find a substantial audience, and contemporary critics were similarly dismissive of his psychologically complex novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852). Between 1853 and 1856, Melville turned increasingly to short fiction, publishing stories in magazines, including Benito Cereno and Bartleby, the Scrivener. In 1857, he travelled to England and toured the Near East before publishing his final prose novel, The Confidence-Man (1857). He subsequently settled in New York City, where he eventually took a position as a United States customs inspector.

From this period onwards, Melville devoted much of his creative energy to poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) reflected on the moral and historical questions surrounding the American Civil War. In 1867, his eldest son, Malcolm, died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Melville's metaphysical epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land was published in 1876.

In 1886, his other son, Stanwix, died, apparently from tuberculosis, and Melville retired from his position as a customs inspector. During his final years, he privately published two further volumes of poetry, while leaving another collection unpublished. His novella Billy Budd, Sailor remained unfinished at the time of his death and was published posthumously in 1924.

Melville died of cardiovascular disease in New York City in 1891. Although largely forgotten by the reading public at the time of his death, his reputation was eventually restored during the 20th century. Today, he is recognised as one of the most important figures in American literature, particularly for the philosophical depth, symbolic complexity, and literary ambition of Moby-Dick.

Reviews

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re toting up American poets of the 19th century, Dickinson gets one finger, Whitman another, but who’s on third? A friend recently told me the smart money’s on Tuckerman (Tuckerman?), and the only Tuckerman I could find is in this volume, wedged between the wet log of a poet that’s Melville—lots of smoke and dramatic crackle, little flame—and E.A.R., who got too much laurel in his own life to really deserve space here. (There’s also small connection with Melville and Tuckerman, born two years apart and both similarly neglected.)

Tuckerman was the laureate of autumnal gloom, with winter’s blast just around the corner. He came to his melancholy honestly, losing an infant daughter, then his beloved wife in childbirth, after which Tuckerman withdrew to Greenfield, MA and let the Civil War and pretty much everything else roll past him. His poems are dense, knotty verbal contrivances that are a world away from the populist bounce of so many of his contemporaries; the subject matter’s death-drenched and wrenching while staying this side of Goth. Penguin stuck out its neck on this one and I’m glad. On to Clarel …