ABSTRACT
The current importance of this nineteenth-century writer who is only now coming into his real reputation can be wholly condensed in a contrast. Herman Melville, on the other hand, first lived genuine adventures, the primitive; he was a noble savage first, and he entered the world of thought and culture later, bringing to it the health and balance acquired in real life. It is no accident that Herman Melville is an American. Herman Melville entered life delicate and estranged. At age nineteen it appears that he was already scribbling. Herman Melville is thus above all a man of letters and a thinker, who began as a whaleman, a Robinson Crusoe, and a vagabond. Herman Melville has more in common with the sage of Camden than rebellion against the petty realities of his day, a mixed English and Dutch ancestry, and the dates of birth and, practically, of death.
