Melville and the visual arts

Throughout his professional life, Herman Melville displayed a keen interested in the visual arts. He alluded to works of art to embellish his poems and novels and made substantial use of the technique of ekphrasis, the literary description of works by visual arts, to give body to plot and character. In carefully tracing Melville's use of the art analogy as a literary technique, Douglas Robillard shows how Melville evolved as a writer.

In separate chapters Robillard deals at length with Redburn, Moby-Dick, Pierre, and Clarel. In briefer discussions he looks at the Piazza Tales and the shorter poems. His extensive history of what Melville saw, responded to, and valued offers new insights into Melville's creative processes.