홉스적 리바이어던의 위험성과 새로운 인간본위: 멜빌의 『모비딕』의 “고래학장”과 ｢마법의 섬｣ 읽기
The Danger of the Hobbesian Leviathan and New Human-Centrism in Herman Melville’s “Cetology Chapters” of Moby Dick and “The Encantadas.”
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This article aims to reveal how Herman Melville’s natural scientific narratives are closely related to the sociopolitical ethos of the democratic republic in the nineteenth-century America. Melville’s two prose works, the “cetology chapters” of Moby Dick and “The Encantadas,” unfold the contemporary Western aspirations toward natural exploration of the world just as Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle was part of the British literature on scientific expedition at the time. The Pequod’s hunt for the white whale, or “leviathan” in Moby Dick, can be interpreted as the human pursuit of Hobbesian absolutist governance. Ishmael’s observation and meditation on whales focus on two dimensions: the leviathan as both a political symbol and a living thing. Also, the narrator of “The Encantadas” contemplates the symbolic meaning of the Galapagos islands drawing the analogy between the deserted landscape of the islands and the destiny of the people who were engaging in the political experiment of building an unprecedented democratic republic. Through the reflections of Ishmael and the narrator of “The Encantadas,” Melville reveals awakenings to new modes of human-centrism, envisioning the future of a new republic and the unity in every living thing.
Abstract
This article aims to reveal how Herman Melville’s natural scientific narratives are closely related to the sociopolitical ethos of the democratic republic in the nineteenth-century America. Melville’s two prose works, the “cetology chapters” of Moby Dick and “The Encantadas,” unfold the contemporary Western aspirations toward natural exploration of the world just as Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle was part of the British literature on scientific expedition at the time. The Pequod’s hunt for the white whale, or “leviathan” in Moby Dick, can be interpreted as the human pursuit of Hobbesian absolutist governance. Ishmael’s observation and meditation on whales focus on two dimensions: the leviathan as both a political symbol and a living thing. Also, the narrator of “The Encantadas” contemplates the symbolic meaning of the Galapagos islands drawing the analogy between the deserted landscape of the islands and the destiny of the people who were engaging in the political experiment of building an unprecedented democratic republic. Through the reflections of Ishmael and the narrator of “The Encantadas,” Melville reveals awakenings to new modes of human-centrism, envisioning the future of a new republic and the unity in every living thing.