Melville's Quarrel With God

by Lawrance Thompson

In this radical reinterpretation, Mr. Thompson argues that Melville, seeking to disguise his agonized conviction of the cruelty and malice of God, consistently satirized Christian doctrine. He endeavors to show that Melville resorted to literary deceptions that could simultaneously hoodwink and satirize the point of view of his orthodox readers. This bold challenge to the conventional interpretation of Melville is brilliantly presented and fully supported by external and internal evidence in such a way as to reveal a sinister intent in all of the major narratives from Typee through Billy Budd .

Originally published in 1952.

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Genres: Nonfiction

484 pages, Paperback

First published November 21, 1966

About the author

Lawrance Thompson (1903-1973), a member of the English faculty at Princeton University, was the official biographer of Robert Frost.

Reviews

[Brad Barker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thompson painstakingly lays out the case that Melville's writing, by White-Jacket, becomes laser-focused on a personal theology that passes the baton from the anti-Christian Romantic humanists to the pessimism of Schopenhauer. (Thompson also goes into the extensive history of "Satanic Schools" such as the Ophites but especially the "Renaissance Humanists" and direct, significant influences on Melville such as Pierre Bayle.) From this manner of reading, Ahab is supposed to be a sympathetic character, the way that Renaissance Humanists read Milton's Satan as an anti-hero.

Most enlightening is the careful analysis of the literary techniques that Melville uses to hide his "sinister" beliefs. There is a sort of "triple-talk" that is subtle and changes the meaning of entire passages, etc.

Some points are weak, and my understanding is that modern Melville scholars fact-check Thompson's biography on Melville, but the core of the thesis is solid. A full understanding of Melville starts here.

[Cort Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy gets it.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly pulled this one off the shelf for the title alone, but it was a solid 1950s-style series of theoretical essays.