Martha Elena Rojas, Professor of English
2019 marks the bicentennial of Herman Melville鈥檚 birth. For lit lovers, reaction to this news will depend almost entirely on their feelings about just one of his novels: Moby-Dick.
Moby-Dick is one of those novels that, let’s face it, many readers avoid or abandon. For those readers, mere mention of the novel may trigger anxiety that looms like its namesake: an intimidating, inscrutable monster.
ENG 396: The Oceanic Nineteenth Century: What is Oceanic Literary Studies?
The Rumowicz Seminar in Literature and the Sea
Martha Elena Rojas
This course introduces oceanic literary studies and aims to broaden students’ conception of maritime literature. Readings include:
The Odyssey
by Homer
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself
by Olaudah Equiano
A Tale for the Time Being
by Ruth Ozeki
Moby-Dick
by Herman Melville
If Melville鈥檚 200th spurs you to take on the tale of the great white whale, English Professor Martha Elena Rojas has a few suggestions:
Pick a version that works for you.
In addition to the familiar editions you might remember, there are Moby-Dick picture and pop-up books for children, and graphic novels for young adults. A favorite of Rojas鈥� is Matt Kish鈥檚 monograph Moby-Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page. The book is 600 pages long with a shipping weight of 4.3 pounds. Melville would be proud.
Commit to reading the first 50 pages.
鈥淓ven if you read only one chapter, you will take something from it,鈥� Rojas says. 鈥淚 think of the first chapters as Melville’s long ramp into it, his way of drawing you into the text. Ishmael’s perspective as a somewhat experienced sailor who nonetheless ventures into unknown territory is much like the reader鈥檚, and the friendship that unfolds between Ishmael and Queequeg models a positive encounter with the new and unfamiliar.鈥�
Begin at the end.
If you get really impatient, stop and read the last three chapters. 鈥淢ost people already know the plot of Moby-Dick, so that鈥檚 one of its challenges: We think we already know it,鈥� Rojas says. 鈥淪o read the end first, and then pick up the book again to experience how Melville gets us there.鈥�
Listen to the audio.
On the website Moby-Dick Big Read, each chapter is read by a different person. Actor Tilda Swinton reads the opening chapter. Beloved poet Mary Oliver, who died in January, reads the epilogue. In between, you hear the voices of Royal Shakespeare Company actors. The novel with its scenes of sailors telling yarns and tall tales, of sermons, speeches, and soliloquies is inherently theatrical.
Get in the mood.
Tracks from Laurie Anderson鈥檚 multimedia translation, 鈥淪ongs and Stories from Moby-Dick鈥� appear on her album Life on a String. 鈥淚鈥檓 partial to 鈥楾he Island Where I Come From,鈥� with its strains of calypso, and the haunting, poetic 鈥楶ieces and Parts,鈥欌�� says Rojas.
Set aside time, but not too much.
The key to success, Rojas says, is setting aside time specifically for the purpose of reading. In the classroom, she gives her undergraduates three weeks. 鈥淭wo weeks is not enough and four is too much,鈥� she says.
Be ready to be rewarded.
National Book Award-winner Nathaniel Philbrick argues in Why Read Moby-Dick that the novel is 鈥渁s close to being our American Bible as we have.鈥� It鈥檚 also a great read, says Rojas. 鈥淎nd Moby-Dick has proliferated and permeated modern culture. There are plays, movies, paintings, operas, even rap songs devoted to it.鈥�
鈥擬arybeth Reilly-McGreen