At Melville’s Tomb (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)

At a glance:

The Poem

“At Melville’s Tomb” is written in four four-line stanzas that follow an irregular rhyme scheme. The reader is placed at the gravesite of the noted nineteenth century American novelist, Herman Melville, whose tales of the sea—most notably Moby Dick (1851)—are generally regarded as commentaries on humans coping with one another and nature in a vast, often inimical, and ultimately destructive universe. The speaker, while he may be inspired by Melville, shares with the reader his own personal feelings and observations as he stands “at Melville’s...

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