In “The Anatomy of Melville’s Fame” it is surprising to read Riegel’s comments on how influential the British critics were in slowing Melville’s and Moby Dick’s rise to literary prestige. Although, thinking about it, it makes sense when considering “The American Scholar”. Emerson writes: “We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe.” It is now clear how necessary Emerson’s call for American scholarship and pride was. Scholarly, Americans were still under the tutelage of the British thinkers. Living an in overly patriotic America, it is hard to wrap a modern mind around the need for American pride. In fact, in Moby Dick it seemed that Melville was critiquing American patriotism. Using Ahab as an allegory for a patriotism that is blind to its own flaws. This is why it was unexpected to read: “Had Americans felt more cultural pride and less inclination to grovel before British oracles, Melville might have become then, as he is now, a great hero of American national consciousness.”  Melville was not only ahead of his time in his critique on religion and racial issues. He also saw the danger of America’s emerging patriotism. Melville saw how Manifest Destiny and expansionism was leading to a blind patriotism. The kind that ignores flaws and breeds dictators.

Riegel points out that the most recent revival of Melville started in 1919 and continues on today, today being 1931. Riegel says “that the recent revival of interest in Melville has been attributed by some to ‘the spirit of the age.” But in its truth the “term is difficult to define”. He goes on to ponder the spirit as the “appeal of Melville’s boldness and expansiveness” or as the decade’s “devotion to psychological history… to spiritual struggle… to the spectacle of man against the world.” Riegel even mentions “post-war psychosis of futility”. But I was shocked to find he didn’t mention post-war patriotism. 1919 marked the end of World War One and America’s entrance as a major world power both militarily and economically. Post-war American patriotism might be another reason Melville’s great American novel made yet another comeback into the literary world.