2007-02-12 01:07:27 · 3 answers · asked by abram 1 in Education & Reference ➔ Quotations
Melville was a sailor for several years and travelled over many seas. And he was a very reflective man, thinking not just about the physical appearance of things but their significance. Gazing at water or large bodies of water, especially when you are isolated from civilization and by yourself, can lead to profound meditation. "Landlubbers" can be distracted by too many things. You will find many profound meditations in "Moby Dick," Melville's great novel. Captain Ahab, for reasons which are partly comprehensible and partly mysterious, wants to destroy the White Whale, which he thinks the incarnation of evil. And the novel meditates on his obsessive yet heroic quest and its tragic results. Think of a brooding sailor who has read widely and writes originally: that is Herman Melville, a giant of American literature. One could say that the marriage of water and meditation produced "Moby Dick'". And Coleridges's Ancient mariner too had discovered the truth of Melville's observation.
Finally, Melville recognizes that if you gaze on the water too long or in a certain frame of mind it has a nesmerizing, fatal attraction.
2007-02-12 03:43:25 · answer #1 · answered by tirumalai 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
1
2017-03-05 01:46:34 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
theyre both soothing? idk 4 sure
2007-02-12 01:52:00 · answer #3 · answered by Miss Amanda 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋