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Examples Of Transcendentalism In Moby Dick

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MOBY DICK AND SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY

Moby Dick is a revenge tale about the revengeful quest of a wounded man for the powerful force of nature; Moby Dick; and the perishing memories of the questors and the wounded questor into the deep perils of the sea, who engulfs all; leaving one as the sole survivor and witness to unveil and unfold the awful revenge tragedy of stubbornness that outlived the American imagination. Richard Chase in his book describes Moby dick as “the most startling and characteristic products of American imagination. ( Gayatri N 2014 :244)
Herman Melville felt that American literature could acquire new depth and dimension by achieving a Shakespearean quality in their literature. Shakespeare’s tragic heroes are often the …show more content…

Macbeth,king Lear, hamlet, Romeo Juliet, Othello, all the tragic heroes face death and are forced to accept defeat, which is seen with Ahab. No matter what happens the one tragic flaw in the protagonist ruins his and other people’s lives.
It contains many examples of alliteration, allusion, similes, and metaphors; it also presents an ironic argument against Transcendentalism and the power of man. The influence of lear and Macbeth is felt as one beholds Ahab and listens to his speeches and soliloquies.( Alfred hazing :1962 ‘chapter 5) The language and metaphor of Shakespeare make themselves strongly felt in Moby dick. It can be clearly seen that “Moby Dick leans very heavily on Shakespeare, even in the diction of some passages.” (Walter Arnold Kaufmann :18)
In Lear Shakespeare has brought poetic and dramatic conception of the play as the center which is grasped by Melville for his Moby Dick ( Charles olson 2007 : 170)HERMAN MELVILEES MOBY DICK EDITED BY Harold bloom. ( Charles olson).
According to Matthiessen the most important effect of Shakespeare’s use of language was to give Melville a range of vocabulary for expressing passion

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