Billy Budd, Sailor

Melville, Herman; Hayford, Harrison; Sealts, Merton M.

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226189048.001.0001

Cited by 145 publications

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“…The veteran's reply that Claggart “is down on” him confounds Billy even more than the mystery of his missing gear. Claggart never passes him without a “pleasant word,” Billy insists, which fact only reinforces the Dansker's confidence in his interpretation that Claggart “is down on” him (Melville , 305). Blind to duplicity, Billy must choose perceived fact (Claggart's pleasant words) over interpretation (the Dansker's assertion that Claggart is down on him), thereby committing an act of misreading that ultimately contributes to his death .…”

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“…When the narrator asks “What was the matter with the master‐at‐arms?” we feel that we ought to ask, in turn, “What was the matter with Melville?” In any event, that question is the first of many in chapter 11, and it announces the chapter's theme: the difficulty of reading Claggart's nature. Nothing has caused Claggart's evil; his “evil nature” is “not engendered by vicious training or corrupting books or licentious living, but born with him and innate” (Melville , 310). The narrator proposes only to reject one authorizing interpretive principle after another: it is not a personality conflict; nor does it follow from a previous incident; ultimately, nothing empirically driven, nothing derived from “knowledge of the world,” will allow us to penetrate his nature (p. 308).…”

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“…The austere devotee of military duty, letting himself melt back into what remains primeval in our formalized humanity, may in end have caught Billy to his heart, even as Abraham may have caught young Isaac on the brink of resolutely offering him up in obedience to the exacting behest. (Melville , 346)…”

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“…To begin with, the very meaning of the narrative depends upon the reader's deciding what is the matter with Claggart. Where the opening question encourages the reader to decide, the penultimate statement of the chapter demands it: “The point of the present story turn[s] on the hidden nature of the master‐at‐arms” (Melville , 310). The statement justifies the strange opening question, at the same time that it raises the stakes of the answer: the very “point” of Billy Budd depends upon understanding Claggart's nature.…”

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“Let no man deceive you by any means”

Osborne

2017

Orbis Litterarum

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“‘Let no man deceive you by any means’: Billy Budd and interpretive tragedy” argues that although Vere's dreadful and necessarily tragic decision occupies the central position in the plot, the association of Claggart with the phrase mystery of iniquity – an allusion to 2 Thessalonians – is the culminating moment in the novel's obsession with the madness and tragedy of interpretation. More specifically, the idea of the mystery of iniquity is fundamental to Melville's tragic view of life. In Paul's letter, the mystery of iniquity refers to the radical deceit unleashed by God upon the world before the return of Christ, a force that makes humans particularly susceptible to delusion. Associating Claggart with the mystery of iniquity ironically seduces readers with its explanatory appeal, thereby diverting them from the phrase's implication that textuality, interpretation, and meaning necessarily participate in representational uncertainty.

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“Let no man deceive you by any means”

Osborne

2017

Orbis Litterarum

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“…In doing so the new generation may want a complete break with the past and therefore reject the previous generation. As an aim, Melville (1976) proposed, "to . .…”

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Erich Fromm and Postmodernism

Davis¹

2003

The Psychoanalytic Review

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Although my experience with Fromm was limited to being a student both in my doctoral and postdoctoral studies, his writings and presence have been a strong influence in my early career. In addition to reading most of his writings, I had the opportunity to present patients to him in both settings. In my graduate days I also had a number of opportunities to speak with him on a number of issues since he was readily available in his office hours. He was very direct and clear in his positions and could be quite challenging, if not critical, if he disagreed. He was very European in his intellectual discussions. I found him and his work appealing on several grounds. In addition to revising some of the classical analysis positions on character traits, he challenged the authoritarianism and the institutionalization of psychoanalysis. He also was a primary force in relating, through his use of Marx's ideas, personality characteristics and functioning to the socioeconomic conditions of society. He also emphasized that psychological maturity is related to ethics and values. While there has been some renewed interest in Fromm, he has largely been neglected in the past years.

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