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Reconstruction politics in Battle-Pieces: Sherlock Holmes meets the Ancient Mariner.

Publication: Melville Society Extracts
Publication Date: 01-JUL-03
Format: Online - approximately 654 words
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Full Article Title: Reconstruction politics in Battle-Pieces: Sherlock Holmes meets the Ancient Mariner.(Abstracts)(Critical Essay)

Article Excerpt
In a section of Battle-Pieces devoted to post-War reflections, Melville misplaces a "battle-piece" poem. "A Scout Toward Aldie" narrates the ambush by Partisan Raiders under Colonel John Mosby of a Northern cavalry scouting party in Virginia. In this poem (I argue) Melville mixes literary genres in pursuit of post-War pacification. Specifically, he obscures his detective story plot by interweaving ballad literary devices in support of peaceful reunion with the defeated South.

My argument for this thesis synthesizes partially correct readings by Edmund Wilson, Hennig Cohen, and William Dean Howells. The first two readings reveal mingling of genres;...

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