high tragedies

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces- though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment. (Moby-Dick)

It will be remembered by the patient and attentive future reader of this dry and methodical narrative, that its first appearance on any stage, was in "high" tragedy—

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border" (March 1853); and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army

This concern for the genre of high tragedy comes of reading Shakespeare, and Aeschylus. On the mock "Tragedy of the Cub" (1853) as a reply to the mean and nasty review of Pierre (1852) in the New York Herald, see "dumb beasts prefer death to slavery," here.