Location: [Reed College] [Department of English] [Laura Arnold][ Nation and Narration]Daily Readings
In his belated review of Melville's collection of short stories Mosses from an Old Manse, Melville expounds what he sees as the base of Hawthorne's genius: his ability to say "things, which we feel to be so terrifically true, that it were all but madness for any good man, in his proper character, to utter, or even hint of them" ("Hawthorne and His Mosses," 451-42).[1] One of the sources of Hawthorne's truth is his "touch of Puritan gloom" since, in Melville's mind, "this great power of blackness in him [Hawthorne] derives its force from its appeals to that Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original Sin, from whose visitation, in some shape or another, no deeply thinking mind is always and wholly free" ("Mosses" 540). While you may decide that you are indeed free of this visitation, this handout is designed to help remind you of what shape it took in early America. As you read Channing's "Moral Argument Against Calvinism" for next time (in your reader), you might want to devise a parallel list of Unitarian and Transcendentalist notions. Where does Moby-Dick fall within this theological debate? (What would it mean to read Moby-Dick as a religious allegory?)
Calvinism:
The major tenets of Calvinism can be remembered by the acronym
TULIP:
Total depravity. All man's senses are flawed. His will is imperfect and he cannot will himself to salvation.
Unconditional Election. God chooses certain individuals for salvation.
Limited Atonement. Christ died only for the elect.
Irresistible Grace. The Holy Spirit extends to the elect a special inward call to salvation. The external call, which is made to all can be rejected. The internal call cannot be rejected. The Spirit graciously causes the elect sinner to cooperate. God's grace cannot fail.
Perseverance of the Saints. It is impossible to "fall" from grace.
Summary: In the Calvinist system, God is in charge of the universe. Things happen for predetermined reasons, and God alone saves sinners. Calvinists are obsessed with knowing the will of God and doing it. reason is the next best thing to faith. Revealed law is privileges over natural law, but the natural law is not eliminated. Structure is important to a Calvinist. Providence is a sign of God's continual interest in the universe.
2. Some suggested Melville-Hawthorne connections (culled by Michael Colacurcio from Wilson's The Hawthorne and Melville Friendship);
H. was a "catalyst: in the composition of Moby-Dick. (Geoffrey Stone Melville 1949)
H. offers M. an "ally" in his developing sense of sin and suffering (Matthiessen, Amer. Ren.)
H. helps M. unfold his "tragic sensibility" (Sedgwick, Herman Melville: Tragedy of Mind)
H. helped transform Ahab from whaling-master to tragic hero. (Vincent The Trying-Out of Moby-Dick)
Neither writer influenced the other (Hoeltje Inward Sky: The Mind and Heart of N.H.)
Moby-Dick shows H.'s "psychic energy and poise" (Waggoner "H's Presence in M-D," Nathaniel Hawthorne Journal 1977.)
In rewriting, Moby-Dick, M. following H's influence, changed his focus to monomaniacal Ahab. (Brodhead, "H. and M. in the Fiction of Prophecy," The School of Hawthorne).
Laura.Arnold@Reed.edu