Herman Melville's wife Elizabeth denied that bad reviews of
Pierre (1852) made a hermit of her husband. No, she wrote a relative in 1901, Herman was "naturally" reclusive and prone to shun "the bustling outside world." Moreover, according to Melville's wife, the critical failure of
Pierre
"was a subject of joke with him..."
(quoted in Pursuing Melville by Merton M. Sealts, Jr. at 215)
A joke! How might Melville have joked about criticism like this
…Modern readers wish to exercise some little judgment of their own.... We are past the age when an artist superscribed his chef d’oeuvre with the judicious explanation, “this is a horse.” Mr. Melville longs for the good old times when the chorus filled the gaps between the acts with a well-timed commentary on the past, and a shrewd guess at the future. (New York Herald, September 18, 1852, quoted here)
and these gems from the unfriendly
review of Melville's Pierre in the Literary World, August 21, 1852:
"Mark the tragical result..."
"Mr. Melville may have constructed his story upon some new theory of art
to a knowledge of which we have not yet transcended; he evidently has
not constructed it according to the established principles of the only
theory accepted by us until assured of a better, of one more true and
natural than truth and nature themselves, which are the germinal
principles of all true art.... The most immoral moral of the story, if it has any moral at all, seems to be the impracticability of virtue..."
"All the male characters of the book have a certain robust, animal force
and untamed energy, which carry them through their melodramatic parts—no
slight duty—with an effect sure to bring down the applause of the
excitable and impulsive."
That's Evert Duyckinck coolly damning his sailor pal in print, so you can see why Hershel Parker thinks Melville's stoic joking must have masked a good deal of personal suffering. (
Herman Melville: A Biography, vol. 2 at 142)
How to reconcile the reception of
Pierre as "a subject of joke" in Elizabeth's memory with the expected, natural human feelings of pain and bitterness? Here's how:
Cub, a Tragedy in Three Acts
In crossing the Platte this morning, the grizzly bear cub came on the scene in his final act.
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—that the first act embraced an unusual amount of sanguinary incident—that an innocent brother, (or sister,) being ruthlessly slain, and the baffled lady-mother left (unceremoniously) full of towering and demonstrative rage,— the imprisoned hero himself sank overwhelmed,—or in a well-acted counterfeit of death, (and was borne off, remember, on a "real" horse). That in the next act, (and three acts shall do for the tragedy of my bear,—originally they had but one,—but that was at the sacrifice of a goat,) he came to life in a manner that might very well have been criticized as an overdone piece of stage-effect,—but that in fact, the spectators were much moved, and gave full credit to the dangerous passion of his howl.
To-day, then,—for I scorn anachronism— was performed the final act. The stage (wagon) was on "real water." Enraged at his wrongs, his losses, and his galling chain, the "robustious beast" acted in a ridiculous and unbearable manner; aye, ''tore his passion to tatters, to very rags,"—splinters; the stage (wagon) could not hold him: and finally in despair, he "imitated humanity so abominably," as to throw himself headlong, and so drown—or hang himself: (the author cannot decide which—even after a post mortem examination;—and so leaves the decision of this important point to the commentators).
My tragedy is all true,—and if not quite serious, has, as is proper, its moral;—but rather, as I have alluded to the primitive tragedy, let that "future reader" here imagine the entry of Chorus, and their song to Freedom! That dumb beasts prefer death to slavery! Liberty lost, they can die without the excitement of the world's applause, or hopes of a grateful posterity! (It is not possible, I think, that the cub could have known that I would immortalize him.)
"Scenes Beyond the Western Border," Southern Literary Messenger 19 (March 1853): 159 and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857), 390
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