Light that invites us
on a journey
From a short story by Melville, the author of Moby Dick
O
nly a few years after Moby Dick, a novel
considered an all-time masterpiece,
was published in 1851, Herman Melville wrote
an autobiographic short story, The Piazza, where
he ideally summarized his last journey, before
taking the modest position as an employee
in the New York Customs Office.
In the story, Melville, the first-person narrator,
is invited on a journey by a radiant spot, a light
he contemplates from his piazza-deck, more
precisely, “one spot of radiance, where”,
the author notes, “all else was shade.”
The light that Melville observes has an
irresistible charm on him, it stimulates him
to set off and reach the high slopes of Mount
Greylock in front of his piazza-deck.
The attraction of this light is even greater than
the call of Homer’s sirens.
Much ahead of time, in his short story Melville
describes the attractive power of light, and its
innovative function of tempting a traveller to go
on an adventure, inviting him to discover places,
the same way that the illuminated architectures
in Pompeii now invite visitors, also at night,
to discover the ruins of the Roman city buried
under the ashes of Vesuvius many centuries ago.
Melville mainly believes in the seduction
of light, the charm that radiates from a luminous
point, a candle or a golden sparkle. There must
be some fairies there around the light, the
author thinks, and adds, with the help of his
fantasy, there must be “some haunted ring
where fairies dance” and, stimulated by the
light, he would like to be there “and push away
for fairy-land” to meet the light. And even
though he does not know how to reach there,
Melville does not give up, “it must be voyaged
to, and with faith”.
Apart from the light, Melville is stimulated
by literary culture. He is also attracted towards
the high grounds by the story of Titania one
Arrowhead, la casa di Melville
a Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1934 /
Herman Melville's home, Arrowhead,
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1934
24
LUCE 321 / EPIFANIE DI LUCE
of the protagonists of A Midsummer Night’s
Dream and in the morning, when the larks sing
as in Romeo and Juliet, the author decides
to set off to discover the light.
The night-time and morning references are
extrapolated from the unlimited Shakespearian
source, and alongside these Melville also uses
strong biblical references to introduce the
enigma of points of view.
When Melville reaches the source of light that
has irresistibly attracted him, and he meets
Marianna, immediately he envies her, because
she can see from a point of view that is opposite
his and his piazza-deck.
It is not like a mirror that increases or decreases
the value of the landscapes, the two views
are not the same, they exist for the observer,
even one without the other.
Introducing a symmetry in the views, Melville
doubles the traveller’s interest in the landscape,
in the light that can be seen. However, when
the author discovers that his source of light is
represented by the sad and solitary Marianna,
he is disappointed for not having found the
radiant land of fairies, and instead of telling
Marianna that he is the owner of the
piazza-deck, of the source of light that in turn
has en chanted Marianna, at the end of the story
Melville skips the fantasy and in view of these
facts suggests that the traveller must choose
the point of view, the source of light that attracts
him, on his own, before setting out on
a journey, the walk of life, and not be obsessed
by other “real” stories like the one he has
narrated from his piazza-deck.
2 – to be continued. For "Epiphanies of Light",
LUCE previously published the tale
by Empio Malara "Alessandro Manzoni,
a Creator of Light" (No.317, September 2016)