While reading through “Melville Reborn, Again and Again” by Matthew Wills, I was fascinated to learn of the perspectives and opinions between British and American criticism of Melville. Throughout the semester, one of the main ideas that has stuck with me is why this book was a failure when it was first released, but after many years it has become a staple in American literature. The idea of powerful works being ignored is something that has always fascinated me, the idea of Melville “dying unknown, forgotten, and ignored” (Wills). After reading through this novel and seeing how beautifully it was written and how strong Melville’s push of multiple cultural issues it is hard to think of him passing without knowing the worth of his work. 

As I read through “The Anatomy of Melville’s Fame” by O. W. Riegel, the reason for this failure became a little more clear. While we read Moby-Dick my understanding of its failure felt like it was based on American society not being able to accept their own wrongs and ignoring things that would call out their ways. This is clearly a current issue we have, therefore it was easy to think of this being the reason people ignored the novel. However, one aspect that interested me was the influence of British criticism on American thought. Riegel states that there was an  “unwillingness of British critics to see in Moby Dick anything more than a poorly constructed whaling story” (196). This is a novel that is certainly difficult at times and some British critics thought of it as a simply badly written whaling adventure story because they would not embrace or “recognized the possibility of a philosophical interpretation” (196). With this in mind it becomes clear why the book would fail in their eyes, Melville wrote a powerful critique and this novel is deeply rooted in the philosophical, therefore to ignore it makes this exactly what they implied. As for American criticism, it was said that “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” (196). This quote is one that is referred to multiple times and it has stuck with me through the reading, the British idea of literature was held at such a high standard that American critics conformed to their ideas instead of creating their own opinions. From my understanding, this quote shows the inability for American critics to create a separation in literature from Britain and with this Melville’s novel failed. This was such a wonderful essay to read through and I am excited to hear what everyone has to say about this in class!