The Hawthorne-Melville Relationship

A Paper Presented
At the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English
Indianapolis, IN, Friday, 19 November 2004

by John W. Stuart, Ph.D.

Dr. John W. Stuart, Chair, Department of English, Manchester-Essex Regional High School, Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA (courtesy of Dr. John W. Stuart)

During all our GSA activities, there was, of course, the daily grind of classes, several of which happened to be finishing Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter in October, 1998, just after some of us had attended a remarkable celebration of National Coming Out Day at Phillips Andover Academy. A brainstorm that I had experienced previously in regard to the Rev. Mr. Dimmesdale’s actions in the narrative finally seemed too appropriate to resist including as one of my essay test questions for The Scarlet Letter. Here is what it said:

Hawthorne's bisexual contemporary, Herman Melville (author of Moby-Dick and Billy Budd), who was also a close friend to the author of The Scarlet Letter and a great admirer of the novel, may well have viewed Arthur Dimmesdale's struggle with a "secret" as a powerful parallel or metaphor for the position of a gay or bisexual person "in the closet." With this week's National Coming Out Day 1998 (an occasion for gay and lesbian organizations to advocate "coming out of the closet" that has so long contributed to homophobic oppression) in mind, trace Dimmesdale's movement from concealment to revelation and parallel it with whatever you happen to know about . . . moves "out of the closet."

Terri assigned me to study the Hawthorne-Melville relationship; and, although I also got to work with David Donavel on the topic of Faith and Religion for the website, I eventually had the Hawthorne-Melville section entirely to myself. What I found and posted for it over the course of the ensuing three years amounted to a fascinating research experience, the results of which I want to summarize for you.

Terri had received a three year grant of a quarter of a million dollars from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the Hawthorne in Salem website. One of the first and most important ways that the money was used was in setting up a lecture series by Hawthorne scholars at Salem’s Turner House, better known as The House of the Seven Gables, or at the Peabody Essex Museum’s Phillips Library. Almost the entirety of the lectures can now be found on the website by any user of the worldwide web, but the live audience for them in the fall of 2000 was generally limited to the half dozen or so of us who were charged with developing the site’s content.

Dr. David Kesterson of North Texas State University delivered his lecture “Hawthorne and Melville” at the Phillips Library on September 23, 2000, giving the website one of its finest pieces of scholarship. Here are some excerpts from his talk:

The zenith of [Hawthorne and Melville’s] relationship was reached . . . when Moby-Dick was published in middle November of 1851 and was dedicated to Hawthorne [“To Nathaniel Hawthorne: In token of my admiration for his genius”]. Hawthorne’s letter to Melville [at the time], like most of those to his friend, has not been preserved, but Melville’s answer on November 17 . . . speaks of the effect Hawthorne’s letter had upon him, in terms characteristic of his impassioned utterances:

I felt pantheist then—your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God’s. . . . Whence come you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips—lo, they are yours and not mine. . . . Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling. . . . Ah! It’s a long stage, and no inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold. But with you for a passenger, I am content and can be happy. . . .

As [Arlin]Turner says in analyzing this letter, “[Melville] was aware, it can be assumed, of the inclusiveness and interwoven imagery of his letter, and no less aware of the meaning behind the imagery. The same awareness can be assumed on the part of Hawthorne”. Edwin Haviland Miller, who interprets Melville’s affection for Hawthorne as in part sexual, says that in this passage, “the most ardent and doubtlessly one of the most painful he was ever to write, he candidly and boldly laid bare his love”. Miller goes on to say that “when Hawthorne retreated from Lenox, he retreated from Melville. How Hawthorne felt his reticences keep us from knowing, but his friend wrestled with the problems and nature of the relationship almost until the end of his life”. Turner says only that “there is evidence through the remaining forty years of Melville’s life that he thought he had been rebuffed by Hawthorne, and that he felt a genuine regret for his loss.”

suggestive panegyric [in his 1850 review of Hawthorne’s Mosses from an Old Manse], [that] Melville writes . . . “already I feel that this Hawthorne has dropped germinous seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further and further, shoots his strong New England roots in the hot soil of my Southern soul”.

. . . Hawthorne liked [Melville’s novel Typee], observing [in 1846] that . . . Melville has “that freedom of view—it would be too harsh to call it laxity of principle—which renders him tolerant of codes of morals that may be little in accordance with our own; a spirit proper enough to a young and adventurous sailor . . .”

In the following excerpts from Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance, the Hawthorne-like character, poet and narrator Miles Coverdale, and the Melville-like character, passionate monomaniac Hollingsworth suggest Melville's influence on the novel. The first person narrator, a young man who joins a major enterprise with mostly adventure-seeking motives, certainly calls to mind narrator Ishmael in Melville's Moby-Dick. The dark and brawny Hollingsworth, bearing a physical resemblance to Melville, cares for Coverdale and seeks his partnership, moreover, in an intensity that seems to parallel Melville's evident affection for and desire for intimacy with Hawthorne. The sharp, mysterious break in the relationships between the two authors and the fictional pair constitute yet another likeness.

In Chapter Four

Coverdale describes Hollingsworth's "dark complexion, his abundant beard, and the rude strength with which his features seemed to have been hammered out of iron, rather than chiselled or moulded from any finer or softer material." He adds that in Hollingsworth's "gentler moods, there was a tenderness in his voice, eyes, mouth, in his gesture, and in every indescribable manifestation, which few men could resist, and no woman."

Coverdale notes that "there was something of the woman moulded into the great, stalwart frame of Hollingsworth; nor was he ashamed of it, as men often are of what is best in them, nor seemed ever to know that there was such a soft place in his heart. . . . I besought Hollingsworth to let nobody else enter the room, but continually to make me sensible of his own presence by a grasp of the hand, a word, -- a prayer, if he thought good to utter it . . . ."

Coverdale declares, "I loved Hollingsworth, as has already been enough expressed." He adds, "If . . .[Priscilla] thought him beautiful, it was no wonder. I often thought him so, with the expression of tender, human care, and gentlest sympathy . . . ." And in Hawthorne's most explicitly homoerotic allusion, Coverdale notes, "the footing, on which we all associated at Blithedale, was widely different from that of conventional society. While inclining us to the soft affections of the Golden Age, it seemed to authorize any individual, of either sex, to fall in love with any other, regardless of what would elsewhere be judged suitable and prudent."

Coverdale concludes the tale of Zenobia's hopeless love for Hollingsworth and enigmatically adds, "It suits me not to explain what was the analogy that I saw, or imagined, between Zenobia's situation and mine; nor, I believe, will the reader detect this one secret, hidden beneath many a revelation which perhaps concerned me less."

Let me return briefly to Dr. Kesterson for his observation of the circumstances surrounding the creation of Moby-Dick. He notes . . .

The major occurrence in Melville’s life . . . during the writing of Moby-Dick was the growing friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne . . . . We are reminded that throughout the fall and winter of 1850, and summer of 1851, Hawthorne and Melville were visiting and writing to each other. . Hawthorne encapsulating their conversation [of August 1, 1851] by writing in his journal: “Melville and I had a talk about time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters, that lasted pretty deep into the night . . . .”

[A Tanglewood Tale] dramatizes the developing friendship of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville during the 1850-1851 period when both authors resided in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. In spite of their strong attraction to each other, they become estranged by fundamental differences. Puritan-in-spite-of himself Hawthorne is pressed too far when worldly former whaler Melville becomes explicit about shipboard liaisons with fellow sailors. Though the play suggests Hawthorne is curious about same sex relations, the reserved New Englander flees Melville and the Berkshires rather than pursue the subject.

MELVILLE - Well, I’m drunk enough to say anything and forget I ever said it . . . So here we are . . . When sailing the seas, Hawthorne, many men look to each other for the things only women on shore can provide. And a common understanding among sailors is that as soon as the ship reaches dry land, all is forgotten. You and all the others know this about sailors. But you are all afraid to ask. You are curious about me, Hawthorne, are you not? Yet you ask not. Where is the reason and logic to that?

To have known him, To have loved him after loneness long; And then to be estranged in life, And neither in the wrong; And now he’s left to set his seal – Ease me, a little ease, my song! By wintry hills his hermit-mound the sheeted snow-drifts drape, And houseless there the snow-bird flits beneath the fir-trees’ crape: Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine that hid the shyest grape.

Same sex relationships in the all male environment of Billy Budd’s British as well as Herman Melville’s American ships are understood. As former First Lord of the Admiralty, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once witheringly quipped, British naval tradition might well be equated with sodomy. Although Billy Budd lacks the “marriage” rites of Moby-Dick’s Ishmael and Queequeg, itcontains endearments for “Handsome Sailor” Billy that leave little doubt as to many of his mates’ ardent feelings toward him. The old Dansker on the British warship originates “Baby Budd,” also shortened to “Baby,” in reference to Billy, “the name by which the foretopman eventually became known aboard ship.” Readers also hear “one Donald” addressing Billy as “Beauty.”

Captain Graveling of Billy’s first ship The Rights of Man notes of his crew’s feelings for Billy that “they all love him,” and Captain Vere muses upon the asset that the impressed Billy brings to H.M.S. Bellipotent as “a fine specimen of the genus homo, who in the nude might well have posed for a statue of young Adam before the Fall.” Arch diction indeed from Melville, for whom “genus homo” might well serve as a subtitle for the early between-the-lines gay manifesto that Billy Budd constitutes! But if the novelette subtly promotes liberated sexuality, as do a number of Melville’s narratives, it primarily does so indirectly by means of demonstrating negative consequences of traditional, repressive Western culture.

Billy’s pathological enemy, Master at Arms John Claggart, initially resents the young sailor precisely because of “his significant personal beauty.” Claggart’s recognition of Billy’s innocence as well

but intensified his passion . . . . Yet in an aesthetic way he saw the charm of it, the courageous free-and-easy temper of it, and fain would have shared it, but he despaired of it.

Claggart, in other words, like the Handsome Sailor’s many admirers, finds Billy attractive; but, since he believes that, for some unspecified reason, perhaps a result of paranoia, no closeness can ever exist between the two of them, the more desirable that Claggart perceives Billy, the more he hates him.

In surveying Billy, “sometimes [Claggart’s] melancholy expression would have in it a touch of soft yearning, as if [he] could even have loved Billy but for fate and ban.” Evidently, Claggart has not fully disguised his private appreciation of Billy; but, because he believes something forbids any future for such feelings, he hardens his heart more and more fiercely toward the object of his desire. What “fate” and what “ban” does his misguided imagination perceive? Do their roles on the ship or elsewhere in society somehow doom any intimacy between them? Or does Claggart just presume Billy could never reciprocate his feelings? Might the Master at Arms simply despise sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular and, as a result, find himself driven all the more mad by his uncontrollable “yearning”? Whatever the accurate diagnosis, it is clear that Claggart distorts any positive feelings he possesses for Billy into negative ones with terrible consequences.

Claggart’s repressed, closeted attraction to Billy finds parallels with some interpretations of Hawthorne’s evident spurning of Melville’s too intimate attentions and Hawthorne’s character in The Blithedale Romance Coverdale’s similar rejection of the invitation from Holingsworth to be his “friend of friends, forever.” For Melville, Hawthorne’s Arthur Dimmesdale’s agonizing acknowledgement of adultery must have seemed a stunning parallel with what later generations would term “coming out of the closet.” Whether Hawthorne himself were a closeted gay man, it is clear that Melville was relatively open in his affections for the senior author and that those affections were somehow turned away and seem to have left a wound that never fully healed. The evils of the closet constitute a subtext in Billy Budd that may well have brought to its author’s mind the sad sundering of his closeness with Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Billy Budd provides an implicit indictment of the culture, whether military or civil, that encourages the kind of closet where a Claggart so readily succumbs to his “depravity according to nature.” Captain Vere likewise shows a closed, perhaps also “closeted” mind as ready prey for the phenomenon of evil. In Vere’s presence, as Billy is struck dumb by Claggart’s accusation, Claggart is struck dead by a single blow from Billy’s fist, the only response he can muster to defend himself. Although Vere cherishes Billy as “an angel of God” and knows him to be innocent of Claggart’s charges, he resists any bending of rules to protect him against the harshest of consequences for his act of insubordination. Ruthlessly silencing the dictates of his heart, “sometimes the feminine in man,” Vere effects what Claggart’s malice alone could not -- Billy’s total destruction.

Although British naval mutineers as well as criminals ashore are explicitly shown in Billy Budd’s early chapters to have received forms of amnesty that ultimately contributed to the saving of the nation, Vere offers no such amnesty to Billy Budd. Claggart himself is rumored to have entered the service as an alternative to imprisonment, the navy’s need for manpower leading to frequent waivers of usual punishments; but Billy Budd receives no alternatives, no waivers. At Nelson’s triumphant Trafalgar, the thwarting of Napoleon’s invasion plans meant a “plenary absolution” for all the former offenders who had contributed to the victory. Billy, however, a “peacemaker,” neither a mutineer nor a criminal, makes a single misstep in retaliation against a known liar who seeks to manipulate the system to destroy him, and how is Billy to be absolved? Vere’s “vehemently exclaimed” answer: “the angel must hang!”

Billy is first the victim of Claggart’s closet, one with similarities to the Roy Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover kinds that project self-loathing onto their targets. Vere’s condition, on the other hand, while containing degrees of benevolence, ultimately emerges as more deadly than Claggart’s. Associating his heart with his hated feminine side, Vere crushes down his capacity for love and compassion with a thoroughly brutal, Night-of-the-Long-Knives sort of intolerance. He, who would never have initiated Billy’s demise, will not permit his own ardor to soften his inflexible judgment, as that would evidently equate with irresolution and weakness. After all, he might rationalize, he is the Captain and the Captain has an image to uphold – right? Forget justice; forget humane treatment; maintaining machismo holds precedence over all! And the tragic result: mindless, meaningless, totally unnecessary suffering and loss on the altar of nothing less than evil itself!

Page citation: http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/12196/