Melville, Captain Vere and History

Barbara Johnson

Melville’s Fist:

The Execution of Billy Budd

[regarding Captain Vere] Why is it the judge that is so passionately judged [by criticism]?

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[4] The naïve or literal reader takes language at face value and treats signs as motivated [note - Budd]; the ironic reader assumes that the relation between sign and meaning can be arbitrary and that appearances are made to be reversed [note- Claggart]. For Vere, the functions and meanings of signs are neither transparent nor reversible but fixed by socially determined convention. Vere’s very character is determined not by a relation between his outward appearance and his inner being but by the “buttons” that signify his position in society. While both Billy and Claggart are said to owe their character to “Nature,” Vere sees his actions as being meaningful only within the context of a contractual allegiance:

Do these buttons that we wear attest that our allegiance is to Nature? No, to the King. Though the ocean, which is inviolate Nature primeval, tho’ this be the element where we move and have our being as sailors, yet as the King’s officers lies our duty in a sphere correspondingly natural? So little is that true, that in receiving our commissions we in the most important regards ceased to be natural free-agents. When war is declared are we the commissioned fighters previously consulted? We fight at command. If our judgements approve the war, that is but coincidence.(Melville, Billy Budd)

Judgment is thus for Vere a function neither of individual conscience nor of absolute justice but of “the rigor of martial law” operating through him.

(snip)

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Conceit, which is Dangerous -- Edward de Vere, Letters

Oxford to Cecil, [May 1601?].

My very good brother, I have received by Henry Lok your most kind message, which I so effectually embrace that, what for the old love I have borne you which, I assure you, was very great; what for the alliance which is between us, which is tied so fast by my children of your own sister; what for mine own disposition to yourself, which hath been rooted by long and many familiarities of a more youthful time, there could have been nothing so dearly welcome unto me. Wherefore not as a stranger, but in the old style, I do assure you that you shall have no faster friend & well-wisher unto you than myself, either in kindness, which I find beyond mine expectation in you, or in kindred, whereby none is nearer allied than myself sith, of your sisters, of my wife only you have received nieces, a sister, I say, not by any venter, but born of the same father and the same mother of yourself. I will say no more, for words in faithful minds are tedious, only this I protest: you shall do me wrong, and yourself greater if, either through fables, which are mischievous, or CONCEIT, which is DANGEROUS, you think otherwise of me than HUMANITY and consanguinity requireth.

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Othello, Shakespeare

Iago:

(I will in Cassio’s lodging lose this napkin

And let him find it. Trifles light as air

Are to the jealous confirmations strong

As proofs of holy writ. This may do something.

The Moor already changes with my poison.

DANGEROUS CONCEITS are in their natures poisons

Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,

But with a little act upon the blood

Burn like the mines of sulfur.)

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Sidney's Superpower - the Illusion of Penetrative Reading (shared by Hamlet):

 Fulke Greville singled out Sir Philip Sidney's fastidiously DISCRIMINATING spirit for special praise: "he piercing into men's counsels and ends, not by their words, oathes, or complements, all barren in that AGE, but by fathoming their hearts and powers, by their deeds and found no wisedom where he found no courage, nor courage without wisdome, nor either without honesty and truth" The Life, Greville

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Johnson, Melville’s Fist con’t.

…While Budd and Claggart thus oppose each other directly, without regard for circumstance or consequence, Vere reads solely in function of the attending historical situation: the Nore and Spithead mutinies have created an atmosphere “critical to naval authority”, and , since an engagement with the enemy fleet is possible at any moment, the Bellipotent cannot afford internal unrest.

The fundamental factor that underlies the opposition between the metaphysical Budd/Claggart conflict on the one hand and the reading of Captain Vere on the other can be summed up in a single word: history. While the naïve and the ironic readers attempt to impose upon language the functioning of an absolute, timeless, universal law (the sign as either motivate or arbitrary), the question of martial law arises within the story precisely to reveal the law as a historical phenomenon, to underscore the element of contextual mutability in the conditions of any act of reading. Arbitrariness and motivation, irony and literality, are parameters between which language constantly fluctuates, but only historical context determines which proportion of each is perceptible to each reader. Melville indeed shows history to be a story not only of events but also of fluctuations in the very functioning or irony and belief:

The event converted into irony for a time those spirited strains of Dibdin…(p.333)

Everything is for a term venerated in navies. (p.408)

   The opposing critical judgments of Vere’s decision to hang Billy are divided, in the final analysis, according to the place they attribute to history in the process of justification. For the ironists, Vere is misusing history for his own self-preservation or for the preservation of a world safe for aristocracy. For those who accept Vere’s verdict as tragic but necessary, it is Melville who has stacked the historical cards in Vere’s favour. In both cases, the conception of history as an interpretive instrument remains the same: it is its use that is being judged. And the very fact that Billy Budd criticism itself historically moves from acceptance to irony is no doubt itself interpretable in the same historical terms.

 Judgement as Political Performance

When a poet takes his seat on the tripod of the Muse, he cannot control his thoughts… When he represents men with contrasting characters he is often obliged to contradict himself, and he oesn’t know which of the opposing speeches contains the truth. But for the legislator, this is impossible: he must not let his laws say two different things on the same subject. Plato, The Laws

In the final analysis, the question is not: what did Melville really think of Captain Vere? But rather: what is at stake in his way of presenting him? What can we learn from him about the act of judging? Melville seems to be presenting us less with an object for judgment than with an example of judgement. And the very vehemence with which the critics tend to praise or condemn the justice of Vere’s decision indicates that it is judging, not murdering, that Melville is asking us to judge.

     And yet Vere’s judgment is an act of murder. Captain Vere is a reader who kills, not, like Billy, instead of speaking, but rather, precisely by means of speaking. While Billy kills through verbal impotence, Vere kills through the very potency and sophistication of rhetoric. Judging, in Vere’s case, is nothing less than the wielding of the power of life and death through language. In thus occupying the point at which murder and language meet, Captain Vere positions himself precisely astride the “deadly space between.” While Billy’s performative force occupies the vanishing point of utterance and cognition, and while the validity of Claggart’s cognitive perception is realized only through the annihilation of the perceiver, Captain Vere’s reading mobilizes both power and knowledge, performance and cognition, error and murder. Judgement is precisely cognition functioning as an act. It is this combination of performance and cognition that defines Vere’s reading not merely as historical but as political. If politics is defined as the attempt to reconcile action with understanding, then Melville’s story offers an exemplary context in which to analyze the interpretive and performative structures that make politics so problematic.

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Honest Ben/Honest Iago
Othello/Oxford


 Catherine M. Shaw. 'Dangerous Conceits Are in Their Natures Poisons': The Language of Othello)

Hilda M. Hulme in her study Explorations in Shakespeare's Language repeats a truism which one of her mentors used: 'A word is known by the company it keeps.' In this case honesty is the initial virus and the other words in proximity 'take corruption' from it. In addition, however, words are also known by the human company they keep. In Shakespeare the greatest dissemblers most use the ambiguity of language to deceive and, conversely, those who most insidiously use language to deceive are most morally corrupt. When, however, a mere five hundred lines into the play, Othello utters the words under discussion, he is linguistically chaste (at least consciously so). He does not remain inviolate, but at this point he believes about words as he does about men - that they are what they seem. His theatre audience, on the other hand, has long since lost its purity. The Globe patron was not only born into that Shakespearean world whose bewildering verbal ambiguities we must search to find but was also treated to actors who 'could recognize in his language that fullness of meaning which it was their business to bring out in stage performance.' By the time Othello makes the arrangements for Desdemona's transport to Cyprus, even the modern has been seduced by Iago, as fine a debaucher as ever Shakespeare created, into merely acknowledging the form of words in passing and dwelling on their matter. Words in Iago's company easily become as hypocritical as he is and thus we become verbally voyeuristic, acutely conscious of the ambiguity between linguistic appearance and reality and of the vision of evil released when words cease to mean what they say.

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Cecil Papers 251/28: Oxford to Cecil, [July 1600].

Although my bad success in former suits to her Majesty have given me cause to bury my hopes in the deep abyss and bottom of despair, rather than now to attempt, after so many trials made in vain & so many opportunities escaped, the effects of fair words or fruits of golden promises, yet for that I cannot believe but that there hath been always a true correspondency of word and intention in her Majesty, I do conjecture that, with a little help, that which of itself hath brought forth so fair blossoms will also yield fruit.

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Othello

My parts, my title, and my perfect soul
Shall manifest me rightly.

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Iago:

The Moor is of a free and open nature

That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,

And will as tenderly be led by th' nose

As asses are.

I have ’t. It is engendered! Hell and night

Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.

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Catherine M. Shaw. 'Dangerous Conceits Are in Their Natures Poisons': The Language of Othello)


The words which issue from Othello's mouth with such calm certainty of composure and self-assurance are no sooner exposed to the air than they become infected; their clear form disintegrates and contaminated matter emerges. Technically, however, the form of words is innocent. With the exception of paradigmatic shifts form is unchangeable; it exists to give shape and order to substance. Linguistic matter, on the other hand, is that changeable, chaotic amalgam of ambiguities which during the evolution of the English language into the Renaissance had been jammed into single forms. The matter within complex words need not, of course, be always malevolent but in Shakespearean tragedy it often is. This is particularly true when the matter takes on implications of purulence and when its outward form is related with illusion, with the facade used to cover infected substance. In Othello the contamination of linguistic matter (whether through verbal or human associations, through deliberate perversion, or by senseless mouthings of meaninglessness) ultimately destroys the ordered control of normal behaviour patterns, personal or social.

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Oxford to Cecil, 12 June 1603.

My very good Lord, I know that you are so charged with public affairs that you can have little leisure, or none at all, to undertake a private cause, especially concerning another. This therefore which you do for me, I do conceive it in your particular favour, and so I take it, and you shall find me therefor ever thankful. These shall be therefore to desire your Lordship that with my very good Lord and friend my Lord Admiral, that you will procure me a full end of this suit wherein I have spent so long a time, and passed the greatest part of mine age. The cause is right, the king just, and I do not doubt but your Lordships both mine honourable friends, according to your words I shall find you in deeds...

Your Lordship's most assured friend and brother-in-law.

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Shakespeare

No,  I AM THAT I AM,  and they that level
  At my ABUSES reckon up their own:
  I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel;
  By their RANK THOUGHTS my DEEDS must not be shown;

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Iago - I confess it is my nature's plague/To spy into ABUSES.

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Jonson on Shakespeare

 He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free

nature, had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle

expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it

was necessary he should be *stopped*.  "Sufflaminandus erat," as

Augustus said of Haterius.  His wit was in his own power; would the

*rule* of it had been so, too.

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OTHELLO

This fellow’s of exceeding honesty

And knows all quantities, with a learnèd spirit,

Of HUMAINE dealings.

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Contaminated 'matter':

 Othello: Act 2, Scene 1
IAGO [Aside.]
167   He takes her by the palm: ay, well said,
168   whisper: with as little a web as this will I
169   ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon
170   her, do; *I will gyve thee in thine own courtship*.
171   You say true; 'tis so, indeed: if such tricks as
172   these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had
173   been better you had not KISSED your three FINGERS so
174   oft, which now again you are most apt to play the
175   sir in. Very good; well kissed! an excellent
176   courtesy! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers
177   to your lips? would they were CLYSTER-pipes for your sake!

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Author: Rich, Barnabe, 1540?-1617. Title: Faultes faults, and nothing else but faultes
Date: 1606

There is nothing more formall in these dayes then Deformitie it selfe. If I should then begin to write, according to the time, I should onely write of new fashions, and of new follies that are now altogether in fashion, whereof there are such a|boundant store, that I thinke they haue got the Philosophers stone to multiplie, there is such a dayly multiplicitie both of follies, and fa|shions.
In diebus illis, Poets and Painters, were priui|ledged to faine whatsoeuer themselues listed: but now, both Poet and Painter, if he be not the Tai|lors Ape, I will not giue him a single halfepenie for his worke: for he that should either write or paint, if it be not fitte in the new fashion, he may go scrape for commendation, nay they will mocke at him, and hisse at his conceit.

But amongst an infinite number of faults, I am not yet resolued with which of them I should beginne, nor what text I might first take in hand, and it may be, some will therfore taxe me to haue but little witte: and no force, let them not spare, I will bee afore-hand with some of them, there is a figure with the Logitians, they call it Prolepsis, or Preuention, and I learned it long agoe, of the Boy that taught his mother to call whoore first. And I will now sitte in iudgement of all those that my memorie can readily produce, and I doubt not, but to bee afore hande with some of them. As for the humorous they haue beene alredie brought to the stage, where they haue plaide their partes, Euerie man in his humour.

(snip)
...The example of the Emperour Sigismund is not to be forgotten, who hearing a shamelesse fel|low to call him God, stroke him on the eare, to whom the Parasite said, Why dost thou strike me, Emperour? To the which he answered, Why dost thou bite me, Flatterer?
God haue mercie Sigismund for this tricke, and I would all our Parasites of these times might be so recompenced: for it is better to hit them on the eare, then to lend them an eare; for he that lendeth his eare to a Flatterer, is like a sheepe that lendeth the Woolfe her teate, and doth more of|ten subuert and ouerthrow the wealth of a king|dome, then an open enemie.
But see here a companie now presenting them|selues, that I cannot say are affected, but I thinke are rather infected with too much courtesie; you

shall know them by their salutations. For first with the kisse on the hand, the bodie shall be bowed downe to the ground: then the armes shall bee cast out, like one that were dauncing the old An|tike, not a word but, at your seruice, at your com|maund, at your pleasure: this olde protestation, Yours, in the way of HONESTIE, is little cared for: euerie Gull was woont to haue it at his tongues end, but now it is forgotten. And these Flowres of courtesie, as they are full of affectation, so they are no lesse formall in their speeches, full of fustian phrases, many times deliuering such sentences as doe be|wray and lay open their maisters ignorance: and they are so frequent with the kisse on the hand, that a word shall not passe their mouthes, till they haue clapt their fingers ouer their lippes. But he that is so full of creeping, and crowching, either hee meanes not well, or his wit will not serue him to meane well, for this common affabilitie, dooth lightly bring with it an ill intent, and but accor|ding to the Prouerbe, MUCH COURTESIE, MUCH CRAFT. 

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An Inquiry Into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States
 By John Taylor

1814

...Suppose the people of England should attempt to abolish monarchy. Both the aristocracy of the present age, and the nobility would arrange themselves in its defence. Which would be most formidable? The remnant or hieroglyphick of the feudal system, would indeed display a ridiculous pomp and an imbecile importance; it would appear armed with title, ribbon and symbol, and evince its weakness by tottering under shadows. But the real aristocracy of the present age; neither begotten by the Gods, the curse of conquest, nor the offspring of nature; the aristocracy of patronage and paper would draw out its fleets, armies, public debt, corporate bodies and civil offices. Which species of aristocracy, I ask again, would be the strongest auxilary for despotism, and the most dangerous enemy to the nation? And yet Mr. Adams has written three volumes, to excite our jealousy against the aristocracy of motto and blazon, without disclosing the danger from the aristocracy of paper and patronage; that political hydra of modern invention, whose arms embrace a whole nation, whose ears hear every sound, whose eyes see all objects, and whose hands can reach every purse and every throat. 

     The faint traces discernible in England, of the aristocracy of the second age, evidently disclose a revolution in its qualities, which must have been produced by a cause; and when we perceive, that the present nobility no longer awaken the jealousy of the king, or attract the attention of the people, it behoves us to ascertain this cause, in order to understand what aristocracy is; ad to distinguish between that which is nominal and that which is real; between a Chilperic, and a Charles Martel.

     The circumstances which constituted the cause of this revolution, disclose the wounds which destroyed the aristocracy of the second age, and the impossibility of its existence, whilst these circumstances remain. Its essence consisted of chivalry, principality, sovereignty, splendor, munificence and vassalage; its shadow, of title. Of all these constituents, except the last, it has been stript by subjecting it to a competition with talents, and exposing it to the effects of commerce and alienation. Plebeians are not the compeers of these titled patricians in wealth, and they, the compeers of Plebeians in subjection to law; and the equalising spirit of knowledge has exalted one class, and reduced the other, to the common standard of mortal men.

     An endeavor to record the magnanimity, ambition and consequence, exhibited by the British peerage, would conduct us precisely to the era of the change, at which the history would stop of itself, in defiance of the historian; it would terminate where the history of patronage and paper begins, because one form of aristocracy supplants another; and it would pass on from the dead to the living, as in the case of any other succession. Thence forward, the English peerage gradually sunk into the aristocracy of the the third age; it became the creature of patronage, the subject of paper; and although it is seen on account of a legislative formulary, it is as little regarded by the nation, as a butterfly by a man in agony. Its number is recruited from the corps raised and disciplined by the system of patronage and paper; and the claims it once possessed to superior knowledge, virtue, wealth, and independence, have been long since immolated at the shrines of printing, alienation and executive power.

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Shake-speare

Threnos

Beauty, truth, and rarity,

Grace in all simplicity,

Here enclos'd, in cinders lie.

Death is now the Phoenix' nest,

And the Turtle's loyal breast

To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:

'Twas not their infirmity,

It was married chastity.

Truth may seem but cannot be;

Beauty brag but 'tis not she;

Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair

That are either true or fair;

For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

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Melville, Fragments of a Lost Gnostic Poem of the 12^th Century

Found a family, build a state,

The pledged event is still the same:

Matter in end will never abate

His ancient brutal claim.

Indolence is heaven's ally here,

And energy the child of hell:

The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear,

But brims the poisoned well.

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Musophilus

Samuel Daniel

Power above powers ! O Heavenly Eloquence !
That with the strong rein of commanding words
Dost manage, guide, and master the eminence
Of men's affections, more than all their swords !
Shall we not offer to thy excellence,
The richest treasure that our wit affords?

Thou that canst do much more with one poor pen,
Than all the powers of princes can effect ;
And draw, divert, dispose, and fashion men,
Better than force or rigour can direct !
Should we this ornament of glory then,
As the unmaterial fruits of shades, neglect?

Or should we careless come behind the rest
In power of words, that go before in worth ;
Whenas our accent's equal to the best,
Is able greater wonders to bring forth ;
When all that ever hotter spirits express'd,
Comes better'd by the patience of the north.

And who—in time—knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
To enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in the yet unformed Occident
May come refin'd with the accents that are ours?

Or, who can tell for what great work in hand
The greatness of our style is now ordain'd?
What powers it shall bring in, what spirits command?
What thoughts let out ; what humours keep restrain'd?
What mischief it may powerfully withstand ;
And what fair ends may thereby be attain'd?