ABSTRACT
DURING THE WINTER AND SPRING OF 1855, MELVILLE COMPOSED “Benito Cereno,” an indictment of “benign” racism that currently enjoys growing critical attention, doubtless because of heightened academic interest in issues of race, as well as gender and class.1 Melvillians, however, have generally shied away from readings of this long short story that consider it in the context of Emersonian Transcendentalism,2 the reason probably being that the question of slavery is at issue here and Emerson’s abolitionist efforts-which are richly documented-ostensibly work against such an interpretation.3 Nevertheless, I intend to explore this possibility by approaching the story as a reactive work of Gothic fiction that may be read as a brilliantly contrived critique of the rational, self-reliant, and highly optimistic philosophy professed by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
