"The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles" is a
novella by
American author
Herman Melville
Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a rom ...
. First published in ''
Putnam's Magazine
''Putnam's Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Science and Art'' was a monthly periodical published by G. P. Putnam's Sons featuring American literature and articles on science, art, and politics.
Series
The magazine had three incarnation ...
'' in 1854, it consists of ten philosophical "Sketches" on the Encantadas, or
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: , , ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on each side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador ...
. It was collected in ''
The Piazza Tales'' in 1856. ''The Encantadas'' was a success with the critics
[Branch, ''Herman Melville, the Critical Heritage.'' p. 35.] and contains some of Melville's "most memorable prose".
Plot
An anonymous narrator unites the ten disparate "Sketches", each of which begin with a few lines of poetry, mostly taken from
Edmund Spenser's ''
The Faerie Queene
''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 sta ...
''. All of the stories are replete with symbolism reinforcing the cruelty of life on the Encantadas. "Sketch First" is a description of the islands; though they are the Enchanted Isles they are depicted as desolate and hellish. "Sketch Second" is a meditation on the narrator's encounter with ancient
Galápagos tortoise
The Galápagos tortoise or Galápagos giant tortoise (''Chelonoidis niger'') is a species of very large tortoise in the genus ''Chelonoidis'' (which also contains three smaller species from mainland South America). It comprises 15 subspecies ( ...
s, while "Sketch Third" concerns the narrator's trip up the enormous tower called the Rock Rodondo. "Sketch Fourth" details the narrator's musings from atop the tower, and his recollection of the islands' accidental discovery by
Juan Fernández. "Sketch Fifth" describes the
USS ''Essex''' encounter with a phantom
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
ship near the area during the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...
.
Sketches Sixth through Ninth tell stories of individual islands. "Sketch Sixth" describes Barrington Isle, once home to a group of
buccaneer
Buccaneers were a kind of privateers or free sailors particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 until about 168 ...
s. "Sketch Seventh, Charles's Isle and the Dog-King" is about Charles's Isle, formerly the site of a colony governed by a soldier who had taken the island as his payment for his role in the
Peruvian War of Independence
The Peruvian War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia del Perú, links=no) consisted in a series of military conflicts in Peru beginning with viceroy Abascal military victories in the south frontier in 1809, in La Paz revolution an ...
. He maintained order through his group of vicious attack dogs, but was eventually banished by the colonists who fell to even greater levels of lawlessness.
"Sketch Eighth, Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow" is one of the most celebrated of the segments. In a manner similar to the rescue of
Juana Maria
Juana Maria (died October 19, 1853), better known to history as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island (her Native American name is unknown), was a Native Californian woman who was the last surviving member of her tribe, the Nicoleño. She lived ...
, the "Lone Woman of
San Nicolas Island
San Nicolas Island ( Spanish: ''Isla de San Nicolás''; Tongva: ''Haraasnga'') is the most remote of the Channel Islands, off of Southern California, 61 miles (98 km) from the nearest point on the mainland coast. It is part of Ventura Cou ...
" in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, who had been rescued only a year prior to ''The Encantadas publication, the narrator describes how his ship had found a woman who had been living alone on Norfolk Isle for years. Hunilla, a "chola" (
mestizo) from
Payta
Paita is a city in northwestern Peru. It is the capital of the Paita Province which is in the Piura Region. It is a leading seaport in the region. Paita is located 1,089 km northwest of the country's capital Lima, and 57 km northwest o ...
,
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = National seal
, national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...
, had come to the island with her newlywed husband and her brother to hunt tortoises; the
French captain who dropped them off promised to return for them, but never did. One day, the husband and brother built a raft to go fishing, but hit a reef and drowned. Hunilla was utterly alone on the island until the narrator's ship arrived, except for one occasion in which she encountered whalers (what happened was so horrible that neither Hunilla nor the narrator would speak of it), and the sailors are so moved by her story that they return her to land and give her whatever money they can scrape up. The narrator last sees her riding to her hometown on the back of a
donkey, an image strongly evoking
Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
's ride into
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
in
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
12:12-20.
"Sketch Ninth, Hood's Isle and the Hermit Oberlus" tells the story of
Oberlus, a former sailor who takes up residence on Hood's Isle and eventually captures four men he makes his slaves. He murders passersby and takes their possessions until his behavior finally runs him afoul of the authorities. "Sketch Tenth, Runaways, Castaways, Solitaries, Gravestones, Etc." is the narrator's description of the human aspects of life on the Encantadas and the relics left behind by former inhabitants.
Autobiographical elements
At the turn of 1840-1841, Melville signed up for a voyage aboard the whaler ''Acushnet''. On October 30, 1841, the ship sighted
Albemarle on the Galápagos Islands. Around October 31, the ''Acushnet'' spoke with the ''Phenix'' of Nantucket. Events on or around this date furnished Melville with the basis for the visit to Rock Rodondo in Sketch Third. On November 2, the Acushnet and four other American whalers hunted the grounds around the Galápagos Islands together; in Sketch Fourth Melville exaggerated the number of ships, though the story itself is told from the perspective of the fictional Salvator R. Tarnmoor.
The Composition
Like all of the stories later included in ''The Piazza Tales'', Melville wrote ''The Encantadas'' while in financial straits after the failure of his novels ''
Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...
'' and ''
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities''. ''Putnam's'' invited him to contribute material in 1852; he began to write, but never finished,
a story on the abandoned wife Agatha Hatch Robertson that year, and submitted his famous work "
Bartleby, the Scrivener" in 1853. In 1854 he contributed ''The Encantadas'', which became the most critically successful of the ''Piazza Tales''.
The ten sketches of "The Encantadas" go back to Melville's whaling years, during which he visited the Galapagos Islands, supplemented with material from his reading in at least six books of Pacific voyages. According to the editors of ''The Piazza Tales'', reliance on personal experience seems most prominent in the first four sketches, yet even here Melville drew upon "a number of other writers", though he only named
William Cowley. Neither is the attribution at the end of the fifth sketch—where Cowley, Colnett, and Porter are mentioned—complete, for Melville borrowed from
James Burney
James Burney (13 June 1750 – 17 November 1821) was an English rear-admiral, who accompanied Captain Cook on his last two voyages. He later wrote two books on naval voyages and a third on the game of whist.
Family
Burney was born in London, ...
as well, probably from ''A Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean'', published from 1803 to 1817. Neither did he mention ''
The Voyage of the Beagle
''The Voyage of the Beagle'' is the title most commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his ''Journal and Remarks'', bringing him considerable fame and respect. This was the third volume of ''The Narrative ...
'' by
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...
, which he used in the first sketch and possibly parodied in sketch four.
In the fourth sketch Cowley's ''Voyage Round the Globe'' from 1699 is quoted. The basis for the fifth sketch is ''Journal of a Cruise Made to the Pacific Ocean'' by Captain David Porter, first published in 1815, which Melville had first used for ''Typee''. This book "provided ore for at least a dozen passages", including the Oberlus story in the ninth sketch and the epitaph which concludes the tenth. In sketch six, Melville applied the brief description of James Island which he found in ''A Voyage to the South Atlantic and Round Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean'' by Captain
James Colnett
James Colnett (1753 – 1 September 1806) was an officer of the British Royal Navy, an explorer, and a maritime fur trader. He served under James Cook during Cook's second voyage of exploration. Later he led two private trading expeditions that ...
, published in 1798, to Barrington Isle.
A month after the collection was published, Melville's old friend Richard Tobias Greene, on whom Toby in ''
Typee
''Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life'' is American writer Herman Melville's first book, published in 1846, when Melville was 26 years old. Considered a classic in travel and adventure literature, the narrative is based on Melville's experiences on ...
'' was based, wrote him a letter expressing how the Encantadas sketches "had called up reminiscences of days gone by".
Publication history
The work was first published as "The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles" under the pseudoniem "Salvator R. Tarnmoor," in three installments in Putnam's Monthly Magazine for March, April, and May, 1854. Melville earned $50 for each installment. It appeared in ''The Piazza Tales'' published by Dix & Edwards in May 1856 in the United States and in June in Britain. Neither that collection of short stories nor "The Encantadas" as a separate item were reprinted during Melville's lifetime.
Reception
"The Encantadas" was one of the stories frequently singled out by reviewers of ''The Piazza Tales'', mostly to compare the sketches to the author's first books. The New York ''Atlas'' found that the sketches were written in "the style of the author's first works", and praised the sketches because "a more vivid picture of the fire-and-barren-curst Gallipagos we have never read".
[Quoted in Sealts (1987), 506] For the ''Southern Literary Messenger'' the sketches were the product of the author's extraordinary imagination, which took the reader "into that 'wild, weird clime, out of space, out of time,' which is the scene of his earliest and most popular writings."
Commenting upon the original appearance in ''Putnam's Monthly Magazine'', the New York ''Dispatch'' cited the chapters as "universally considered among the most interesting papers of that popular Magazine, and each successive chapter was read with avidity by thousands." The reviewer called the sketches "a sort of mixture of 'Mardi' and 'Robinson Crusoe'--though far more interesting than the first named work."
Adaptations
Kenneth Gaburo
Kenneth Louis Gaburo (July 5, 1926 – January 26, 1993) was an American composer.
Life
Gaburo was born in Somerville, New Jersey. He served as a professor of music at the University of Illinois, the University of California, San Diego, and the Un ...
completed a one-act opera, ''The Widow'', based on ''The Encantadas'' in 1961.
Four years later, Portuguese director Carlos Vilardebó directed an adaptation in a Portuguese-French coproduction, starring Portuguese fado singer and actress
Amália as Hunilla (the film is essentially based on "Sketch Eight").
A maldição das "Ilhas Encantadas"
Jorge Mourinha, Público, 12 July 2011
In 1983, American composer
Tobias Picker
wrot
for narrator and orchestra. The piece was given its world premiere that year by the Albany Symphony Orchestra and recorded on Virgin Classics by The Houston Symphony
The Houston Symphony is an American orchestra based in Houston, Texas. The orchestra is resident at the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts.
History
The first concert of what was to become the Houston Symphony took place on June 21, ...
with John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Brit ...
as narrator. Each of the work's six movements evokes a different picture of life in the Galapagos Islands’ equatorial wilderness.
Notes
References
* Bergmann, Johannes D. (1986). "Melville's Tales." ''A Companion to Melville Studies''. Edited by John Bryant. New York, Westport, Connecticut, London: Greenwood Press.
* Branch, Watson G. (ed.) (1974). ''Melville: The Critical Heritage.'' Edited by Watson G. Branch. The Critical Heritage Series. First paperback edition, 1985, London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
* Bryant, John (2001). "Herman Melville: A Writer in Process." Herman Melville, ''Tales, Poems, and Other Writings''. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by John Bryant. New York: The Modern Library.
* Delbanco, Andrew (2005)
''Melville: His World and Work.''
New York: Knopf.
* Hayford, Harrison, Alma A. MacDougall, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1987). "Notes on Individual Prose Pieces." In Melville 1987.
* Matthiessen, F.O. (1941)
''American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman''.
London, Toronto, New York: Oxford University Press.
* Melville, Herman; Busch, Frederick (Ed.) (1986). ''Billy Budd and Other Stories''. New York: Penguin. .
* Melville, Herman (1987)
''The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces 1839-1860''.
Edited by Harrison Hayford, Alma A. MacDougall, G. Thomas Tanselle, and others. The Writings of Herman Melville Volume Nine. Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University Press and The Newberry Library.
* Milder, Robert (1988). "Herman Melville." ''Columbia Literary History of the United States''. Emory Elliott, General Editor. New York: Columbia University Press.
* Miller, Perry (1956). ''The Raven and the Whale: The War of Words and Wits in the Era of Poe and Melville''. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
* Parker, Hershel (1996)
''Herman Melville: A Biography. Volume I, 1819–1851.''
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
* Parker, Hershel (2002)
''Herman Melville: A Biography. Volume 2, 1851-1891''.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
* Robertson-Lorant, Laurie (1996). ''Melville: A Biography''. New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers.
* Sealts, Merton M., Jr. (1987). "Historical Note." In Melville (1987).
* --- (1988). ''Melville's Reading. Revised and Enlarged Edition''. University of South Carolina Press.
External links
*
from Melville.org.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Encantadas, The
1854 short stories
Short stories by Herman Melville
American novellas
Works originally published in Putnam's Magazine
Galápagos Islands
Ecuadorian culture
Novels set in Ecuador