Leviathan article

LEVIATHAN. JOURNAL OF MELVILLE STUDIES

Vol. 17.1 (2015)
Read the complete introduction as PDF »

On June 15, 2014 the Charles W. Morgan set out on her historic 38th Voyage, a journey that took her as far as Stellwagen Bank, where she sailed amongst the whales. The Morgan returned to Mystic Seaport on August 6.

Mystic Seaport received an NEH grant to fund the educational component of the voyage. Part of the grant included sending scholars, artists, historians, scientists, journalists, teachers, musicians, and whaling descendants on each of the Morgan’s transits. Named “38th Voyagers,” the 85 participants, chosen from applicants from across the United States and overseas, slept aboard the Morgan the night before the transit, then spent the day at sea documenting their experience. Included in the 85 were the eight Melville scholars who share their reflections on the voyage in this special section of “Extracts.”

—Mary K. Bercaw Edwards
University of Connecticut

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"How many hundreds of other young men, for example, served on whalers, without writing a word about it, or perhaps even being able to do so? There is nothing probable, really, about Melville turning his whaling years into literature..."

Ellie Stedall: Sea-Room

As Melville noted, “You must have plenty of sea-room to tell the Truth in.”

John Bryant: Work

A ship is a place of work. And the work begins with language.

"But because I’ve trod the Morgan’s deck, watched her 19 sails unfurl, explored her blubber room, because I know her live oak keel steadies her, she becomes precise in word and paint. With the barbaric Pequod, Ryder’s moonlit vessels, Turner’s whale ships, spewing gore into a blood red dawn, the Morgan now looms and moves across the canvas of my mind, sails billowing."

Elizabeth Schultz: Ishmael on the Morgan

Poems inspired by the 38th Voyage.

Blum mates desk

Hester Blum: A List of Books that I Did Not Read on the Voyage

"The questions that structured my encounter with the whaleship, as it turned out, found unexpected answers: I neither read nor wrote a word while aboard."

"Melville could laud the inhuman sea because he had experienced the participatory culture of sailor communities aboard ships like the Charles W. Morgan."

Wyn Kelley: “Lauding the Inhuman Sea”

A scholar ponders Melville's pessimism and connects it to our own time.

"The radiant faces of my friends as this iconic vessel tied up at the wharf in New Bedford evoked pure joy, a deep and transcendent emotion, possibly akin to the realization of one’s best beloved returning home after a long and uncertain absence or a physical reaction to the unexpected fulfillment of a long-suspected desire."

Michael P. Dyer: Magic, Luck, and My Passage

"Many have called the Charles W. Morgan a “lucky ship.” I don’t know about that... the word “magical,” I think, may be a better description."

Robert Wallace: Steering Out of the Haven

“What is there to steering a ship when it is being towed by a tug that determines its course?” Much more than you might think.

Viewing Moby-Dick through the Lens of the Charles W. Morgan

Peter Norberg: Viewing Moby-Dick through the Lens of the Charles W. Morgan

"When I described my project to the other eight voyagers onboard, I was surprised to learn that five of them had brought along their personal copies of Moby-Dick."