The Power of Blackness: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville

by Harry Levin

The Power of Blackness is a profound and searching reinterpretation of Hawthorne, Poe and Melville, the three classic American masters of fiction. It is also an experiment in critical method, an exploration of the myth-making process by way of what may come to be known as literary iconology.

Genres: Literary Criticism

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

professor of comparative literature

Reviews

[Searnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although dated, published in 1958, this work provided the singular pleasure of being free of Deconstruction's double-speak and Continental theories, ideologies, and psycho-babbling obscurities. While, I would have wanted more discussion on Moby- Dick, I am, nevertheless, content with the critical appreciations of Hawthorne, Poe, and Melville offered here.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to trudge through this Manichean explanation, because, as it balances against three distinct but similarly isolated American minds, it has both the sensation of a literary lullaby and a heavy assertion. Best read when well read in the three authors as the works are examined and explored both stylistically but more-so with a plotcentric gaze (in example, I enjoyed reading about Poe and Hawthorne who I am more widely familiar with than reading of Melville). Although at times primitive in stringing together the dark ties of an unbounded freneticism, The Power of Blackness searches more deeply within the superego of these (and many other) authors; it gives the sense of wonder for American writing that keeps you rooting backwards, tumbling towards the past.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are only a few books of literary criticism that I am ever tempted to reread. Harry Levin’s The Power of Blackness is one of them. It captures better than any book I have read the yin-yang interplay in the American soul of the dour Puritan’s perception of a howling spiritual wilderness with our illusory sunny romantic optimism. His first chapter is titled “The American Nightmare,” which may be what becomes of the American Dream. Levin notes that love stories are rare in Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville. They often have a dark, ironic twist: Hester Prynne’s deadly affair with Dimmesdale, Poe’s morbid fascination with dead girls, and outcast Ishmael, first in bed with Queequeg and then afloat on his lifesaving coffin. Levin is an eclectic critic, using all the tools of formalism (especially image study), biographical criticism, and the emerging fields of comparative literature and culture criticism. His prose is clear and without pretension. 5 stars.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

For literary criticism, not bad. The section on Poe is particularly fascinating. Fairly quick read, as well.

[Salvatore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enlightening essays on Hawthorne, Poe, and Melville. Perhaps analyses that were ahead of their time - interested in the racial, homoerotic, and liberal viewpoints of these authors, while also showcasing their darker sides. Levin contextualizes the authors' stories and novels in the American literary scene too, before and after them, by touching on Henry James and Ernest Hemingway, Walt Whitman and Washington Irving. Learning!

[Thom Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A searching reinterpretation of the classic American masters of fiction -- maintaining that the characteristic mode of American writing is not the realistic novel, but the imaginative, symbolic romance." --back cover quote from NY Post.

[Cristina Dinu · Rating 5 out of 5]

an amazing book