Publication Date

2024

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Einboden, Jeffrey M.

Degree Name

Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)

Legacy Department

Department of English

Abstract

This dissertation compares the works of Herman Melville and Friedrich Nietzsche. Melville and Nietzsche articulate similar arguments about the collapse of Christian metaphysics as a traditional philosophical system. Both authors recognize the moral, intellectual, and spiritual void this collapse revealed, and they craft similar texts that illustrate humanity’s emotional turmoil facing the abyss. In addition to these scenes of upheaval, Melville and Nietzsche promote the importance of the individual’s will to overcome the possible fall into psychological nihilism resulting from recognizing the emptiness of traditional religion’s teachings. Melville’s and Nietzsche’s striving against complete despair in the wake of this collapse demonstrates their “metaphysical nihilism,” an attitude that Mark Anderson, one of the first scholars to develop a comparative analysis of Melville and Nietzsche, identifies as a common viewpoint threading Melville’s literature and Nietzsche’s philosophy. This form of nihilism, while not without pain and anguish, embraces an existence that has been liberated from Christianity’s constraints. That is, the end of Christian metaphysics does not render existence meaningless; rather, to recognize the system’s collapse allows the individual to create and perform new meanings about life and reaffirms an existence that has been liberated from metaphysical influence. Each chapter analyzes Melville’s and Nietzsche’s literature and philosophy as an existentialist response to the collapse of Christian metaphysics. Chapter one examines Melville’s and Nietzsche’s similar belief that the interpretation of language could not provide a stable and unified meaning about existence, a direct challenge to the faith in the logocentric tradition promoted by Christian metaphysics. Chapter two addresses Melville’s and Nietzsche’s similar skepticism about scientific advancement that purported to be a replacement for Christianity’s teachings. Rejecting both religious tradition and science as stable systems of knowledge, Melville and Nietzsche describe the actual world as a void. While they both share feelings of dread encountering this emptiness, they also express a bold attitude in their confrontation with the void. As part of their dauntless attitude facing the abyss, Melville and Nietzsche demonstrate a common will to overcome the despair and suffering encountering the void, and Chapter three analyzes Melville’s and Nietzsche’s similar arguments about the role of the creative will to move humanity beyond nihilism.

By reading Melville’s and Nietzsche’s works with an existentialist lens, this dissertation extends Mark Anderson’s comparative study of the authors’ metaphysical nihilism, further situating Melville’s and Nietzsche’s literature and philosophy within the history of ideas. While identifying Nietzsche as an existentialist is not a controversial position, reading Melville’s literature as an illustration of existentialist philosophy creates a new interpretive lens to analyze the experimental forms that comprise his literary corpus. In addition, studying Melville’s work as a reflection of existentialism contributes to an emerging sub-field within Melville studies that analyzes Melville as a philosopher. Reading Melville as an existentialist provides not only an additional philosophical frame to study Melville’s literature but also adds a new voice to this philosophical movement that is often defined as a twentieth-century continental philosophy.

Extent

262 pages

Language

en

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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