''Timoleon'' (full title: ''Timoleon and Other Ventures in Minor Verse'') is a collection of forty-two poems by American writer
Herman Melville
Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...
. It was privately published in May 1891, four months before the author's death.
[Delbanco, p. 289.] Printed by the
Caxton Press in an edition of 25 copies, it was the last work by the author published during his life.
Background
In the spring of 1891, Melville prepared a collection of poems for press, with the assistance of his wife, Elizabeth.
[Howard, p. 332.] The volume consisted of old and new poems which reflected the author's meditations on his old age.
Melville dedicated the book to American artist
Elihu Vedder
Elihu Vedder (February 26, 1836January 29, 1923) was an American symbolist painter, book illustrator, and poet, born in New York City. He is best known for his fifty-five illustrations for Edward FitzGerald's translation of ''The Rubaiyat of Om ...
in honor of his admiration of Vedder's painting ''Jane Jackson, Formerly a Slave''.
[Gale, 450.]
Contents
* "Timoleon"
* "After the Pleasure Party"
* "The Night March"
* "The Ravaged Villa"
* "The Margrave's Birthnight"
* "Magian Wine"
* "The Garden of Metrodorus"
* "The New Zealot to the Sun"
* "The Weaver"
* "Lamia's Song"
* "In a Garret"
* "Monody"
* "Lone Founts"
* "The Bench of Boors"
* "The Enthusiast"
* "Art"
* "Buddha"
* "C_____'s Lament"
* "Shelley's Vision"
* "Fragments of A Lost Gnostic Poem of the 12th Century"
* "The Marchioness of Brinvilliers"
* "The Age of The Antonines"
* "Herba Santa"
;''Fruit of Travel Long Ago''
* "Venice"
* "In a Bye Canal"
* "Pisa's Leaning Tower"
* "In a Church of Padua"
* "Milan Cathedral"
* "Pausilippo"
* "The Attic Landscape"
* "The Same"
* "The Parthenon"
* "Greek Masonry"
* "Greek Architecture"
* "Off Cape Colonna"
* "The Archipelago"
* "Syra"
* "Disinterment of the Hermes"
* "The Apparition"
* "In the Desert"
* "The Great Pyramid"
;''L' Envoi''
* "The Return of the Sire de Nesle"
Theme
The consistent theme running throughout these poems is the author's devotion to Art.
[Howard, p. 335.] The title poem "Timoleon", for example, has an autobiographical strain. It depicts a character (based on the historical
Timoleon
Timoleon (Ancient Greek language, Greek: wikt:Τιμολέων, Τιμολέων), son of Timodemus, of Ancient Corinth, Corinth (c. 411–337 BC) was a Greek statesman and general.
As a brilliant general, a champion of Greece against Anci ...
) who is unappreciated and exiled until war brings him to fight for his people. After securing victory, he refuses to return home. Melville at the time similarly saw himself as an unappreciated would-be savior of literature.
[ The historical story was adapted from ]Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''P ...
with elements of Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly , ; born Honoré Balzac;Jean-Louis Dega, La vie prodigieuse de Bernard-François Balssa, père d'Honoré de Balzac : Aux sources historiques de La Comédie humaine, Rodez, Subervie, 1998, 665 p. 20 May 179 ...
's ''The Two Brothers'', in which a mother favors one brother over another, just as Melville saw himself in competition with his brother Gansevoort Melville.[
]
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
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External links
''Timoleon''
(text of the first edition)
{{Herman Melville
1891 poems
American poems
Poetry by Herman Melville