Melvillean

the Melvillean reforms of the 16th century

He had a Melvillean obsession.

But for me, and apparently for the Melvilleans who every summer trek up Monument Mountain on the first Sunday of August, the mountain has become a monument not to star-crossed Iroquois lovers but to the meeting of Hawthorne and Melville. Starting the easy hike up Monument Mountain on a sunny day in May, I hatch a scheme to come up here on the first Saturday of August, the day before the annual jaunt of the Melvilleans, to leave love notes from “Herman” to “Nathaniel” tacked on trees—just a little something to titillate the literati.

Reciprocating Melville’s interest in Japan, enthusiastic Japanese Melvilleans have ever pursued his works, through which they seek to understand the cultural background of Western civilization.

But he no longer dreamed of putting out to sea; his daytime occupation was to make sure duties had been paid on unloaded cargo, and his writing hours were devoted to an 18,000-line poem, Clarel, about a pilgrimage through the desert—the desert!—to various sites in the Holy Land, which few even among Melvilleans can claim to have read.