COMMENTARY ON "BARTLEBY": 1968-1979*

                            BY WILLIAM J. BURLING

SINCE the 1922 revival of Melville's work, critics and scholars have ploughed, planted, and harvested the rich garden of the Melville canon and life many times over. Indeed, that so many crops are possible without the soil becoming depleted is evidence of the lasting artistry and worth of this twentieth-century man who struggled in a nineteenth-century world, born seventy-five years too soon for his world view to be accepted. "Bartleby the Scrivener" is one of the Melville flowers which has drawn considerable attention, both from its enigmatic characterizations and action and from its ambiguous resolution, a literal crying out in the vast urban wilderness.

Appropriately, each new generation of commentators, bringing to the story different knowledge and values, has found differing "meanings" latent in the encounter between the feeble, specterlike clerk and the secure, bourgeois lawyer. Donald Fiene has compiled a lengthy bibliography on "Bartleby" through 1965, which directs the student to the number and variety of these reactions.¹ Scholars and critics in the forties and fifties found in this tale: a parable of the artist; a satire on Transcendentalism, religious statements of varying kinds; glimpses of a soul afloat in the sea of despair; and biographical allusions. In the sixties, in a decade of social upheaval and awareness, commentators saw those kinds of traits in "Bartleby" -- a criticism of society, isolation, and communication breakdowns heralding the emerging modern age. The late sixties and early seventies bring yet another round of appraisals and discoveries; the new generation, discarding the "literature-as-history" method of textual explication, announces interpretations which echo its own concerns and values.

While the religious readings of "Bartleby" seem to be on the wane, at least two critics continue to make cases. Donald Fiene (1970) argues that the uncompromising clerk is not just a Christ-like figure, Bartleby is Christ exactly. Nathan Cervo (1972) takes the next logical step by arguing that Bartleby is God. Thus, the lawyer's rejection of the clerk is a metaphor for the rejection of genuine spirituality for "Economic Darwinism in its Calvinistic American form."²

A number of critics have chosen to center on economic or sociological readings of "Bartleby." A standard Marxist reading (strangely out of step, considering the decline of Marxist philosophy and criticism in the past decade) comes from Louise Barnett (1974); she claims that ". . . alienation from work--the necessary labor by which most of us live--is the key in Marxist thinking to alienation from self and society as well."³ James Bowen emphasizes that Bartleby chooses not to work (thus making the story nonabsurdist in the sense of Camus's Sisyphean analysis of mankind), but Allan Emery (1976) reminds the student that "while Bartleby's flaw is his radical refusal to undergo the imposition of psychological limits, the narrator's unattractiveness stems from his readiness to accept them."⁴ Thus, the story reveals "psychological polarities . . . unsatisfactory . . . and forever incapable of synthesis."⁵ Milton Kornfeld (1975) sees Bartleby's refusal to work and his death as an unwillingness to participate in role-playing and "a repudiation of what passes for reality."⁶ Kornfeld, for some unknown reason, stresses that his interpretation is "cross-disciplinary," as if any comment not directly pertaining to "literary" matters calls for additional support.

The relationship of the lawyer and Bartleby to the greater city and society is also commented upon. Explaining the allusion to John Jacob Astor, Mario D'Avanzo (1968) claims that the lawyer's proud identification with the "First Man of Wall Street" fits nicely into the well-worn theme of the story as a parable of the artist. Astor, he continues, exploited writers, particularly Washington Irving, so the great "patron" of art and founder of the library in which Melville read so many times epitomizes the pretentious society "which . . . has little use, need, or respect for a literature which dives to the philosophical deeps. . . ."⁷ John Randall, in a less memorable fashion, presents a picture of New York's Wall Street in the 1850s, the city representing "a callously self-interested mercantile society in which any deviance from its norms, if at all insisted upon, leads to punishment by imprisonment and even death."⁸ Randall insists that this explains the significance of the subtitle, for Melville clearly saw through the city.

Surprisingly, after the exhaustive research done in the earlier periods of biographical inquiry, the present period has produced a number of articles on the sources or influences present in "Bartleby." For example, Hershel Parker (1970) finds plenty of evidence to support the already popular theory that "Bartleby" is a satiric parody of Thoreau in particular and the Transcendentalists in general. Agreeing with that reasoning, John Seelye (1970) declares that the story is a commentary on Emerson's "Transcendentalist," and also that Melville owes a debt to Irving and other contemporaries for the motif of the "mysterious stranger." Another piece of evidence for contemporary influences comes from Johannes Bergmann (1975), who reports on an advertisement for a popular story of the day by John Maitland, the first chapter of which ran as part of the ad on February 2, 1853, containing remarkable parallels to many elements in "Bartleby."

Four other scholars have found small clues for influences from Melville's reading. John Ditsky (1979) reads in Melville's clerk the attitudes of Barnardine in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Another British influence is noted by Richard Tuerk (1970); Melville, Tuerk claims, knew well a collection by Isaac D'Israeli, which includes a story about a Quaker who would not eat; he also notes that Melville purchased this collection years after the publication of "Bartleby," but that he knew of the Quaker story before 1853. Steven T. Ryan (1978) attempts to locate and connect Melville's debt to the Gothic tradition, citing elements of language, setting, and plot which are remarkably similar to items in Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher." Urging for a consideration of Melville's deeper reading, Daniel Stempel and Bruce Stillians (1972) cite Melville's interest in Schopenhauer's doctrine that only one choice is available for man: renunciation of life. Further, they emphasize the detail that "the narrator finds comfort in reading explanations that stress strict causality and deny human freedom . . . ."⁹ They also shed some light on the Edwards and Priestly references.

As well as presenting an efficient summary of criticism, Nicholas Ayo (1972) delves critically into the character of the narrator; Ayo claims that the story is about the lawyer, for it is in his actions that the reader reacts to Bartleby's resignation and death. While many commentators agree that the death of Bartleby is central to the impact of the story, Ted Billy (1975) asserts that the lawyer represents Eros, and Bartleby, Thanatos. The story becomes a nihilistic chronicle of the fragmentation of human sensibility; further, continuing the biographical tradition, Billy argues that this is "Melville's . . . last resort to blunt the impact of his nihilistic vision."¹⁰ Taking the case for the lawyer a bit further, Walton Patrick (1969) emphasizes that "the real point of the story is not what the lawyer attempts for Bartleby; rather it is what Bartleby has done for him."¹¹

Clearly, a case can be made for a focus on the lawyer, on Bartleby, or on society. From precisely this perspective, a lively discussion on how the reader fits into the story is attempted by Liane Norman (1971). She believes the reader is the most important member of the action, since he must see things through the lawyer's eyes. David Shusterman (1972) agrees that the reader is a crucial partner, but he disagrees about the reasons for why this is true. He claims that Norman's reading is only one of many possible variations, that her commentary indicates only the vision of the world which she brings to the story. Accordingly, every reader will see in this parabolic tale a reflection of his own world. This interaction of reader and story, he claims, gives rise to confusion between the story itself and its results, the well-known "reader fallacy."

The phenomenological criticism, which rests squarely on the assumption that the reader will always see himself in the story, creating along with the artist, certainly rubs against the traditional position taken by literary critics. While it is true that each age must reevaluate and reinterpret past literature in terms of the contemporary consciousness, it is also true, traditional critics would argue, that a work has an intended meaning set forth by the artist. Here the work of Kingsley Widmer must be acknowledged.

Widmer, in his book on Melville's short fiction (1970) clearly differentiates between scholarship, as a search for sources (biographical and literary), and criticism.¹² The torrent of publications surrounding all of Melville's works attests for the feeling that Widmer holds that scholarship and criticism have become entangled to an unfortunate degree. He does not hold that one is more important than the other; rather, he reminds the reader of the parameters of both, and then announces that he is interested in criticism. From this starting point he further notes that he is not neutral and that he believes no critic should be. He goes on to establish a context for his appraisal of "Bartleby," existential nihilism, which was offered well before his book (at least a half-dozen articles appeared in the sixties, including one by Widmer), but which was not consistently or fully developed within the framework of Melville's other works. His chapter on "Bartleby" equates the clerk to another clerk of modern nihilistic literature, the figure from Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground. On the basis of an extended analysis, Widmer concludes that "Bartleby" is Melville's best work of fiction.¹³

Fortunately or no, the articles will continue to appear in great numbers, and the bibliographers will faithfully record the entries. Who, one wonders, reads or evaluates all of these commentaries? Truly, a vast Shining Sea of information invites the student with promises of marvelous ports of call; an unwary navigator will find himself in a Sargasso Sea of redundancy, though, bogged down in masses of repetitive rhetoric, contrived scholarship, and general stagnation. More than 175 articles have appeared on "Bartleby" since 1922. Certainly many express worthy points of view; almost as certainly, except to review scholarship or to signal a point of departure, no one need repeat any of those views again.

                           LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED

Abrams, Robert E. "'Bartleby' and the Fragile Pageantry of the Ego." ELH. 45 (1978), 488- 500.

Ayo, Nicholas. "Bartleby's Lawyer on Trial." Arizona Quarterly, 28 (1972), 27-38.

Barnett, Louise K. "Bartleby as Alienated Worker." Studies in Short Fiction, 11 (1974), 379-85.

Bergmann, Johannes Dietrich. "'Bartleby' and The Lawyer's Story." American Literature, 47 (1975), 432-36.

Bickley, R. Bruce, Jr. The Method of Melville's Short Fiction. Durham: Duke University Press. 1975.

Billy, Ted. "Eros and Thanatos in 'Bartleby.'" Arizona Quarterly, 31 (1975), 21-32.

Bowen, James K. "Alienation and Withdrawal Are Not the Absurd: Renunciation and Preference in 'Bartleby the Scrivener.'" Studies in Short Fiction, 8 (1971), 633-35.

Cervo, Nathan A. "Melville's Bartleby--Imago Dei." American Transcendental Quarterly, 14 (1972), 152-56.

D'Avanzo, Mario. "Melville's 'Bartleby' and John Jacob Astor." The New England Quarterly, 41 (1968), 259-64

Dillingham, William B. Melville's Short Fiction, 1853-1856. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1977.

Ditsky, John. "Melville's 'Bartleby': A Shakespearean Source?" New Laurel Review, 9 (1979), 43-45,

Emery, Allan Moore. "The Alternatives of Melville's 'Bartleby.'" Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 31 (1976), 170-87.

Fiene, Donald M. "A Bibliography of Criticism of 'Bartleby the Scrivener.'" In Melville Annual 1965, A Symposium: Bartleby the Scrivener, ed. Howard P. Vincent. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1966, pp. 140-90.

______. "Bartleby the Christ." American Transcendental Quarterly, 7 (1970), 18-23.

Firchow, Peter E. "Bartleby: Man and Metaphor." Studies in Short Fiction, 5 (1968), 342- 48.

Fisher, Marvin. Going Under: Melville's Short Fiction and the American 1850s. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 1977.

______. "'Bartleby,' Melville's Circumscribed Scrivener." Southern Review, NS 10 (1974), 59-79.

Giddings, T. H. "Melville, the Colt-Adams Murder, and 'Bartleby.'" Studies in American Fiction, 2 (1974), 123-32.

Knight, Karl F. "Melville's Variations on the Theme of Failure: 'Bartleby' and Billy Budd." Arlington Quarterly, 2 (1969), 44-58.

Kornfeld, Milton. "Bartleby and the Presentation of Self in Everyday Life." Arizona Quarterly. 31 (1975), 51-56.

Mathews, James W. "'Bartleby': Melville's Tragedy of Humours." Interpretations (University of Pennsylvania), 10 (1978), 41-48.

Middleton, F. "Source for 'Bartleby."' Extracts, 15 (1973), 9.

Monteiro, George. "'Bartleby the Scrivener' and Melville's Contemporary Reputation." Studies in Bibliography, 24 (1971), 195-96.

______. "Melville, 'Timothy Quicksand,' and the Dead-Letter Office." Studies in Short Fiction, 9 (1972), 198-201.

Norman, Liane. "Bartleby and the Reader." The New England Quarterly, 44 (1971), 22-39.

Parker, Hershel. "Melville's Satire of Emerson and Thoreau: An Evaluation of the Evidence." American Transcendental Quarterly, 7 (1970), 61-67.

______. "Dead Letters and Melville's Bartleby." Resources for American Literary Study, 4 (1974), 90-99.

Patrick, Walton R. "Melville's 'Bartleby' and the Doctrine of Necessity." American Literature, 41 (1969), 39-54.

Randall, John H. III. "Bartleby vs. Wall Street: New York in the 1850s." Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 78 (1975), 138-44.

Ryan, Steven T. "The Gothic Formula of 'Bartleby.'" Arizona Quarterly, 34 (1978), 311-16.

Sanderlein, Reed. "A Re-examination of the Role of the Lawyer-Narrator in Melville's 'Bartleby.'" Interpretations, 10 (1978), 49-55.

Seelye, John. "The Contemporary 'Bartleby.'" American Transcendental Quarterly, 7 (1970), 12-18.

Shusterman, David. "The 'Reader Fallacy' and 'Bartleby the Scrivener.'" The New England Quarterly, 45 (1972), 118-24

St. Armand, Barton Levi. "Curtis's 'Bartleby': An Unrecorded Melville Reference." Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America, 71 (1977), 219-220.

Stein, Allen F. "The Motif of Voracity in 'Bartleby."' ESQ, 21 (1975), 29-34.

Stempel, Daniel, and Bruce M. Stillians. "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Parable of Pessimism." Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 27 (1972), 268-82.

Tuerk, Richard. "Melville's 'Bartleby' and Isaac D'lsraeli's Curiosities of Literature, Second Series." Studies in Short Fiction, 7 (1970), 647-49.

Wells, Daniel A. "'Bartleby the Scrivener,' Poe, and the Duyckinck Circle." ESQ, 21 (1975), 35-39.

Widmer, Kingsley. The Ways of Nihilism: A Study of Melville's Short Novels. Los Angeles: The California State Colleges, 1970.

Wright, Nathalia. "Melville and 'Old Burton,' with 'Bartleby' as an Anatomy of Melancholy." Tennessee Studies in Literature, 15 (1970), 1-13.

William J. BurIing is a member of the Department of English at Pennsylvania State University.

¹Donald M. Fiene, "A Bibliography of Criticism of 'Bartleby the Scrivener.'" in Melville Annual 1965. A Symposium: Bartleby the Scrivener, ed. Howard P. Vincent (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1966). pp. 140-90.

²Nathan A. Cervo, "Melville's Bartleby -- Imago Dei," American Transcendental Quarterly, 14 (1972), 155.

³Louise K. Barnett, "Bartleby as Alienated Worker." Studies in Short Fiction 11 (1974), 385.

⁴Allen Moore Emery, "The Alternatives of Melville's 'Bartleby,'" Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 31(1976). 181.

⁵Ibid., p. 187.

⁶Milton Kornfeld, "Bartleby and the Presentation of Self in Everyday Life." Arizona Quarterly, 31 (1975), 56.

⁷Mario D'Avanzo, "Melville's 'Bartleby' and John Jacob Astor," The New England Quarterly, 41 (1968), 261. See James C. Wilson's article in this issue, in which he also connects the lawyer-narrator with Astor, concluding that in "Bartleby" Melville wrote "one of the bitterest indictments of American capitalism ever published."

⁸John H.Randall III, "Bartleby vs. Wall Street: New York in the 1850s." Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 78 (1975), 144.

⁹Daniel Stempel and Bruce M. Stillians. "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Parable of Pessimism," Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 27 (1972), 279.

¹⁰Ted Billy, "Eros and Thanatos in 'Bartleby.'" Arizona Quarterly, 31 (1975), 32.

¹¹Walter R. Patrick, "Melville's 'Bartleby' and the Doctrine of Necessity," American Literature, 41 (1969), 53.

¹²Merton Sealts, Jr., rigorously reviews three fine book-length studies by Bickley (1975), Fisher (1977), and Dillingham (1977) in ESQ 25 (1979), 43-57. See also Robert Milder's "Knowing Melville" (ESQ 24 [1978], 96-117) for additional reflections and suggestions on the kinds and amounts of scholarship on Melville, particularly his "soft-core hard-core" distinction.

¹³Kingsley Widmer, The Ways of Nihilism: A Study of Melville's Short Novels (Los Angeles: The California State Colleges, 1970), p. 103.

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