Mardi

Mardi
First edition title page

Mardi, and a Voyage Thither is the third book by American author Herman Melville, first published in 1849.

Contents

Overview

Mardi is Melville's first pure fiction work (while featuring fictional narrators, his previous novels were heavily autobiographical). It details (much like Typee and Omoo) the travelings of an American sailor who abandons his whaling vessel to explore the South Pacific. Unlike the first two, however, Mardi is highly philosophical and said to be the first work to show Melville's true potential. The tale begins as a simple narrative, but quickly focuses upon discourse between the main characters and their interactions with the different symbolic countries they encounter. While not as cohesive or lengthy as Moby-Dick, it shares a similar writing style as well as many of the same themes.

As a preface to Mardi, Melville wrote somewhat ironically that his first two books were nonfiction but disbelieved; by the same pattern he hoped the fiction book would be accepted as fact.

Critical response

Mardi was a critical failure. One reviewer said the book contained "ideas in so thick a haze that we are unable to perceive distinctly which is which".[1] Nevertheless, Nathaniel Parker Willis found the work "exquisite".[1]

Nathaniel Hawthorne found Mardi a rich book "with depths here and there that compel a man to swim for his life... so good that one scarcely pardons the writer for not having brooded long over it, so as to make it a great deal better."[2]

The wide spread disappointment of the critics hurt Melville yet he chose to view the book's reception philosophically, as the requisite growing pains of any author with high literary ambitions. "These attacks are matters of course, and are essential to the building up of any permanent reputation—if such would ever prove to be mine... But Time, which is the solver of all riddles, will solve "Mardi."

References

  1. ^ a b Miller, Perry. The Raven and the Whale: The War of Words and Wits in the Era of Poe and Melville. New York: Harvest Book, 1956: 246.
  2. ^ Parker, Hershel (1996). Herman Melville: A Biography, 1819-1851. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 768. ISBN 0-8018-5428-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=pFB1UOHRlvYC&dq=herman+melville+hershel+parker. 

External links

Online versions

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Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • mardi — mardi …   Dictionnaire des rimes

  • mardi — [ mardi ] n. m. • fin XIIe; marsdi 1110; lat. Martis dies « jour de Mars » ♦ Deuxième jour de la semaine, qui succède au lundi. Venez mardi. Il vient le mardi, tous les mardis. Mardi gras : dernier jour du carnaval, qui précède le carême. Se… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • mardi — 1. (mar di) s. m. Le troisième jour de la semaine (le dimanche en étant le premier). Venez me voir mardi. Cela arriva un mardi. J y vais tous les mardis.    Mardi gras, le dernier jour du carnaval. Faire le mardi gras, son mardi gras, prendre… …   Dictionnaire de la Langue Française d'Émile Littré

  • mardi — MARDI. s. m. Le troisiesme jour de la semaine. Cela arriva un Mardi. On appelle, Mardi Gras, Le dernier des jours du Carnaval. Il a fait le Mardi Gras, son Mardi Gras en bonne compagnie …   Dictionnaire de l'Académie française

  • mardi — MARDÍ, mardesc, vb. IV. tranz. (arg.) A trage cuiva o bătaie zdravănă; a bate, a lovi (zdravăn). – Din ţig. mardo. Trimis de claudia, 01.10.2003. Sursa: DEX 98  MARDÍ vb. v. atinge, bate, lovi. Trimis de siveco, 13.09.2007. Sursa: Sinonime …   Dicționar Român

  • Mardi — ist der französische Name für Dienstag. Siehe auch: Mardi Gras Mardis Diese Seite ist eine Begriffsklärung zur Unterscheidung mehrerer mit demselben Wort bezeichneter Begriffe …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Mardi — Le nom est surtout présent dans le Maine et Loire. La tradition veut qu il s agisse du nom donné à un enfant trouvé un mardi, mais en fait l usage des jours de la semaine en anthroponymie demeure un peu énigmatique …   Noms de famille

  • mardi — Mardi, Martis dies. Le Mardi gras, le jour de Quaresme prenant, Dies Hilariorum. B …   Thresor de la langue françoyse

  • Mardi — (Amardi, a. Geogr.), ein kriegerisches, weitverbreitetes Volk in Asien, deren in Medien, Hyrkanien, Margiana, Persis, Großarmenien, an der Ostküste des Pontos Euxinos, in Scythia extra Imaum u. Baktrien erwähnt werden …   Pierer's Universal-Lexikon

  • Mardi — (franz.). Dienstag; M. gras (spr. grā. »fetter Dienstag«), Fastnachtsdienstag …   Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon

  • Mardi — (frz.), Dienstag; M. gras (spr. grah), Fastnacht …   Kleines Konversations-Lexikon

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