After reading Mentz’s article, it feels like my eyes have opened up a little bit more because of the details that I completely agree with. In the article, he quoted: “For literary writers and scholars, the ocean seems especially attractive because of its metaphorical vastness. The great waters represent a principle of narrative fecundity that Salman Rushdie has described as the “sea of stories.” (140). This quote is so interesting to me because, for a long time, I have been curious about the idea of: is there more to the ocean than just water? We all know that the ocean is vast. We all know it has tons of stories of people who are worth mentioning. This is when curiosity strikes me. I want to know more about the deep-sea creatures. Most people would think that such creatures would never exist, but the deep dark sea contains everything, and when I say everything, I mean creatures that our eyes could not even believe in. Mentz made such great points in this quote because, as scholars, we allow our curiosity to win over us. We study by gaining knowledge. We study by thinking about the possibilities of everything that could possibly happen at any moment. We create thoughts that are beyond the human imagination. We are attracted to the ocean not only because it has water, but because it creates images that allow us to visualize those stories in our heads. This is why Moby Dick plays a huge part in all of the articles we have read so far. The novel allows us to explore the mysteriousness that the sea offers to us. As scholars, we are not meant to know everything about the sea. We are meant to study it, to visualize it, and know the dangers behind it. When Mentz refers to ‘sea of stories’, I believe he is referring to the stories of the people who sail to the sea in the novel. There has to be people who challenge their lives in order to go out into the deep sea. Even though there are some points that I believe are spectacular and worth mentioning, this article still confuses me because it talks about the sea with poetics alongside other poets. Does this mean the ocean is the body of a poem? And people just sort of utilize it as a way to create more poems? I would love to learn more about how the ocean is associated with poetry because it definitely plays a huge role in explaining the vastness of the ocean.
Moby-Dick
ECL 522: Fall 2025. Professor Pressman
Hi Mylo!
I really like how you connected Mentz’s idea of the “sea of stories” to both curiosity and the unknown creatures of the deep ocean. That curiosity that you described feels central to what the blue humanities is trying to spark in us: the sense that the ocean is more than just water; it’s a space of imagination, danger, and endless possibility. I also think your question about whether “the ocean is the body of a poem” is a really powerful way to frame it! In a way, Mentz seems to suggest exactly that: the ocean becomes a metaphorical text we’re always trying to read, one that is full of distortion, mystery, and flow. Like you said, we may never fully know the sea, but as scholars, we can still be shaped by the stories and images it carries. I think that’s what makes literature like Moby-Dick so important; it doesn’t give us answers, but it shows us how vast and ungraspable the ocean really is.
Wonderful post. Smart ideas, grounded in the text, and truly reflective. I am eager to start reading the novel with you and to hear what you think, as we move along!
Hi Mylo!
I really loved the ideas you brought up in this response. The part in which you talk about how we aren’t meant to fully understand and know the ocean, but we are meant to study it and use it to create really stuck with me. The idea of blue humanities is not one that I have had the easiest time understanding, but I think your point is exactly correct. The ocean is not just there for us to try to understand. It is also there for us to use as a jumping point for our own ideas and imaginations.
Hi Mylo,
I definitely think that Mentz is in part referring to the stories of the characters within the book but I also think that when he refers to the stories of the ocean it also encompasses a sense of the history we can learn from the ocean. If we can view the ocean as a historical archive there is so much that we can learn and it would lead us to change our connection to water.