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Poet: Herman Melville
Poem: Gettysburg
Comment 1 of 1, added on January 1st, 2006 at 1:35 AM.
For writers and poets of Herman Melville's era, the Civil War was a momentous event, and they often wrote about it. Walt Whitman's poem, Oh Captain, My Captain, written as a response to the death of Lincoln, is only one of many examples.
In the poem Gettysburg, Melville comments on Pickett's charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, which many say was the turning point in the war, and signaled the end for the Confederacy. In the opening lines, Melville refers to Dagon, who was a ancient god of the Philistines. His statue, according to a story in the Bible, was mysteriously prostrated before the Ark, which held the Ten Commandments. Since he was a Pagan god, Melville uses Dagon to represent the South, and the forces of Christianity and God, to represent the North.
A reference to an ancient pagan god may seem obscure to us, but for Melville's generation the Bible was a well read book, and the war was seen by many as a titanic struggle of biblical scope. Listen to the words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, with it's reference to God's "terrible swift sword", and you will see what I mean. And even today we have Raiders of the Lost Ark!
Melville than says how God "walled" Dagon's power. And when the charge fails at last Melville says, "And Right is a strong-hold yet." This poem, like Melville's most famous novel, Moby Dick, is an
"allegory"; a story with a hidden meaning or moral lesson. A religous undertone is common to much of Melville's work, and the work many other writers of early Protestant New England. Another example is Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Scarlett Letter". Melville is here using the solely historical event of Gettysburg to comment on universal biblical concepts like the struggle between Good and Evil. Awareness of this strong religous influence can help to make poems like this more understandable.
Clinton Tillman from United States
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Comments
For writers and poets of Herman Melville's era, the Civil War was a momentous event, and they often wrote about it. Walt Whitman's poem, Oh Captain, My Captain, written as a response to the death of Lincoln, is only one of many examples.
In the poem Gettysburg, Melville comments on Pickett's charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, which many say was the turning point in the war, and signaled the end for the Confederacy. In the opening lines, Melville refers to Dagon, who was a ancient god of the Philistines. His statue, according to a story in the Bible, was mysteriously prostrated before the Ark, which held the Ten Commandments. Since he was a Pagan god, Melville uses Dagon to represent the South, and the forces of Christianity and God, to represent the North.
A reference to an ancient pagan god may seem obscure to us, but for Melville's generation the Bible was a well read book, and the war was seen by many as a titanic struggle of biblical scope. Listen to the words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, with it's reference to God's "terrible swift sword", and you will see what I mean. And even today we have Raiders of the Lost Ark!
Melville than says how God "walled" Dagon's power. And when the charge fails at last Melville says, "And Right is a strong-hold yet." This poem, like Melville's most famous novel, Moby Dick, is an
"allegory"; a story with a hidden meaning or moral lesson. A religous undertone is common to much of Melville's work, and the work many other writers of early Protestant New England. Another example is Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Scarlett Letter". Melville is here using the solely historical event of Gettysburg to comment on universal biblical concepts like the struggle between Good and Evil. Awareness of this strong religous influence can help to make poems like this more understandable.
Clinton Tillman from United States