What we’re about
"Wisdom and Woe" is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. We will read and discuss topics related to:
- Works of Herman Melville: Moby-Dick, Clarel, Bartleby the Scrivener, Billy Budd, the Confidence Man, Mardi, reviews, correspondence, etc.
- Themes and affinities: whales, cannibals, shipwrecks, theodicy, narcissism, exile, freedom, slavery, redemption, democracy, law, orientalism, Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, psychology, mythology, etc.
- Influences and sources: the Bible, Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Milton, Cervantes, Dante, Emerson, Kant, Plato, Romanticism, Stoicism, etc.
- Legacy and impact: adaptations, derivations, artworks, analysis, criticism, etc.
- And more
The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" (as Hawthorne once said of his conversations with Melville) into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."
"There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces."
(Moby-Dick, chapter 96)
"Though wisdom be wedded to woe, though the way thereto is by tears, yet all ends in a shout." (Mardi, chapter 2.79)
"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." (Ecclesiastes 7:4)
![[Series] Fig Leaves and Fancy Pants cover photo](https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/d/e/c/event_514896332.webp "[Series] Fig Leaves and Fancy Pants")
NOTE: This page is intended as a thematic overview of the meetups in the series, but is not itself a meetup. To RSVP, please see the individual events as they are announced on the Wisdom and Woe calendar.
Clothing is protective of health and hygiene, but it is also ornamental, communicative of wealth, status, political ideals, emotional states, group membership, and personal identity. It can be expressive or repressive of one's inner life (via disguise, compulsory uniforms, sumptuary laws, etc.). It functions symbolically not only to distinguish one's relationship with society, but as synecdoche for society itself.
In the 19th century, dandyism promoted extravagant costume and opulent lifestyles closely associated with aristocracy. Dandies provided a surprisingly consistent foil for Melville's satire, while scantily-clad Polynesians dramatized his philosophy of austere egalitarianism, ala Thoreau, Tolstoy, and others.
According to Baudelaire, the dandy's slogan is "To live and die before a mirror." But according to Melville, what Narcissus fatally sees there is "the ungraspable phantom of life" (Moby-Dick, 1).
The sacred and profane aspects of ceremonial clothing were treated by Melville in "The Whiteness of the Whale" and "The Cassock" chapters of Moby-Dick, respectively. For Edward Carpenter, clothing's spiritual significance was in its ability to stifle both body and soul: "one might almost as well be in one's coffin as in the stiff layers of buckram-like clothing commonly worn nowadays.... Eleven layers between him and God! .... Who could be inspired under all this weight of tailordom?"
Political revolutions and counter-revolutions can manifest sartorially, as in White-Jacket's fictionalized "Rebellion of the Beards." The psychologist J.C. Flügel protested the so-called "Great Male Renunciation" that stigmatized colorful menswear, while (ironically) also prophesying a more enlightened "nude future." His views were lobbied by the "Men's Dress Reform Party" and the "Sunlight League"--the latter of which euphemistically promoted nudity as "helio-therapy." While reminiscent of later Women's Liberation protests, there were no rumors of a Bonfire of the Unmentionables.
This series will explore society and individuality, formal and feral.
Series schedule:
- A Discourse Upon the Origin of Inequality - Rousseau - 5/19
- The Theory of the Leisure Class - Veblen - 5/26
- Of Dandyism and of George Brummell - Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly - 6/2
- Typee: A Peep At Polynesian Life - 6/9, 6/16, 6/23
- Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas - 6/30, 7/7, 7/14
- Totem and Taboo - Freud - 7/21
- Letters to His Son - Lord Chesterfield - 7/28
- Don Juan - Lord Byron - 8/4
- D'Orsay; or, The Complete Dandy - W. Teignmouth Shore - 8/11
- Henrietta Temple - Benjamin Disraeli - 8/18
- Pierre; or, The Ambiguities - 8/25, 9/1, 9/8, 9/15
- Movie night: "Pola X" - 9/22
- The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge - Carlos Castaneda - 9/29
- A Tale of a Tub - Jonathan Swift - 10/6
- Sartor Resartus - Thomas Carlyle - 10/13, 10/20
- The Rape of the Lock - Alexander Pope - 10/24 [Thu]
- Dandy Doodles - 10/27
- The Sea Lady - H.G. Wells - 11/3
- The Book of Job - 11/10
- Cinderella [Thu] - 11/14
- The Women of Trachis - Sophocles - 11/17
- John Rutherford, The White Chief - George Lillie Craik - 11/24
- A Fringe of Leaves - Patrick White - 12/1, 12/8, 12/15
- White Shadows in the South Seas - Frederick O'Brien - 12/22, 12/29
- White Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War - 1/5, 1/12, 1/19, 1/26
- The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - 2/2, 2/9, 2/23
- The Monastery - Walter Scott - 3/2, 3/16
- Movie night: "White Shadows in the South Seas" & "Fig Leaves" - 3/9
- The Overcoat - Gogol; Master and Man - Tolstoy - 3/23
- The Rebel - Camus - 3/30, 4/6
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey - 4/13, 4/20
- The Trembling of a Leaf - W. Somerset Maugham - 4/27, 5/4
- Murat - Alexandre Dumas [Thu] - 5/8
- Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative) - 5/11
- On Revolution - Hannah Arendt - 5/18, 5/25
- Movie night: "Beau Travail" - 6/1
- Red Jacket - John N. Hubbard - 6/8
- The Scarlett Letter - Hawthorne - 6/15, 6/22
- Melville: Fashioning in Modernity - Stephen Matterson - 6/29, 7/6
- Pacifism and Rebellion in the Writings of Herman Melville - John Bernstein - 7/13
Trivia:
- Nathaniel Hawthorne once noted that Melville was "a little heterodox in the matter of clean linen."
Extracts:
- "But do these buttons that we wear attest that our allegiance is to Nature? No, to the King." (Billy Budd, Sailor, 21)
- "... if yonder Emperor and I were to strip and jump overboard for a bath, it would be hard telling which was of the blood royal when we should once be in the water." (White-Jacket, 56)
- "... one's dress was legislated upon, to the last warp and woof. All girdles must be so many inches in length, and with such a number of tassels in front. For a violation of this ordinance, before the face of all Mardi, the most dutiful of sons would cut the most affectionate of fathers." (Mardi, 2.23)
- "People may say what they will about the taste evinced by our fashionable ladies in dress. Their jewels, their feathers, their silks, and their furbelows, would have sunk into utter insignificance beside the exquisite simplicity of attire adopted by the nymphs of the vale on this festive occasion. I should like to have seen a gallery of coronation beauties, at Westminster Abbey, confronted for a moment by this band of island girls; their stiffness, formality, and affectation, contrasted with the artless vivacity and unconcealed natural graces of these savage maidens. It would be the Venus de' Medici placed beside a milliner's doll." (Typee, 22)
- "Give me my grandfather's old ... cane, with the gold-loaded top—a cane that, like the musket of General Washington's father and the broadsword of William Wallace, would break down the back of the switch-carrying dandies of these spindle-shank days; give me his broad-breasted vest, coming bravely down over the hips, and furnished with two strong-boxes of pockets to keep guineas in; toss this toppling cylinder of a beaver overboard, and give me my grandfather's gallant, gable-ended, cocked hat." (White-Jacket, 76)
- "“All is vanity.” All." (Moby-Dick, 96)
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- The Trembling of a Leaf - W. Somerset Maugham (week 1)Link visible for attendees
"Extreme happiness, only separated from extreme despair by the trembling of a leaf, isn't this life?" --Sainte-Beuve
W. Somerset Maugham first claimed fame as a novelist and dramatist. With The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), he also established his reputation as a preeminent short story and travel writer. His inspiration came from first-hand observations of the Pacific: "I had always had a romantic notion of the South Seas," he said. "I had read of those magic islands in the books of Herman Melville, Pierre Loti, and Robert Louis Stevenson, but what I saw was very different from what I had read."
His poignant collection of tales, pervaded by a sense of disillusionment and dark irony, explores the culture clash of colonialists, natives, and half-castes, set against the backdrop of tropical beauty. The tales offer a glimpse into the complexities of love and loss, the fragility of human emotions, and (for better or worse) the transformative power of the South Seas.
"There may be only the trembling of a leaf between extreme joy and extreme despair," said The Saturday Review, "but there is the whole crashing of a tree" between this and lesser works: "each separate tale is begun by inspiration and completed by artistic perfection." "Rain" is the most famous story among them--"a sheer masterpiece of sardonic horror"--having been adapted several times for both theater and film.
Schedule:
- Week 1 (April 27): Stories 1 through 4
- Week 2 (May 4): Stories 5 through 8
The Trembling of a Leaf:
Supplemental:
- Rain 1932 movie trailer
- Somerset Maugham's review of Moby-Dick, from Ten Greatest Novels of All Time
Extracts:
- "But is life, indeed, a thing for all infidel levities... that what we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event—the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper...?" (Pierre, 4.2)
This meetup is part of the series Fig Leaves and Fancy Pants.
- The Trembling of a Leaf - W. Somerset Maugham (week 2)Link visible for attendees
"Extreme happiness, only separated from extreme despair by the trembling of a leaf, isn't this life?" --Sainte-Beuve
W. Somerset Maugham first claimed fame as a novelist and dramatist. With The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), he also established his reputation as a preeminent short story and travel writer. His inspiration came from first-hand observations of the Pacific: "I had always had a romantic notion of the South Seas," he said. "I had read of those magic islands in the books of Herman Melville, Pierre Loti, and Robert Louis Stevenson, but what I saw was very different from what I had read."
His poignant collection of tales, pervaded by a sense of disillusionment and dark irony, explores the culture clash of colonialists, natives, and half-castes, set against the backdrop of tropical beauty. The tales offer a glimpse into the complexities of love and loss, the fragility of human emotions, and (for better or worse) the transformative power of the South Seas.
"There may be only the trembling of a leaf between extreme joy and extreme despair," said The Saturday Review, "but there is the whole crashing of a tree" between this and lesser works: "each separate tale is begun by inspiration and completed by artistic perfection." "Rain" is the most famous story among them--"a sheer masterpiece of sardonic horror"--having been adapted several times for both theater and film.
Schedule:
- Week 1 (April 27): Stories 1 through 4
- Week 2 (May 4): Stories 5 through 8
The Trembling of a Leaf:
Supplemental:
- Rain 1932 movie trailer
- Somerset Maugham's review of Moby-Dick, from Ten Greatest Novels of All Time
Extracts:
- "But is life, indeed, a thing for all infidel levities... that what we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event—the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper...?" (Pierre, 4.2)
This meetup is part of the series Fig Leaves and Fancy Pants.
- Murat - Alexandre DumasLink visible for attendees
"Murat" is one of Celebrated Crimes (1839) by the celebrated Alexandre Dumas, a collection of short stories depicting violent episodes from history.
Joachim Murat (1767-1815) was a military commander and statesman serving under his brother-in-law, Napoleon Boneparte. He bore many titles in his lifetime--including Marshal, Grand Admiral, and Grand Duke of Berg--and his daring cavalry charges earned him the nickname "The First Horseman of Europe." But his handsome looks, ostentatious style, and flamboyant uniforms--for which Napoleon compared him to a famous circus rider--also earned him the nickname "The Dandy King."
In the name of the French Revolution, Napoleon had invaded Italy, displacing its feudal order, and establishing new codes of law, with Murat installed as King of Naples. But when Napoleon surrendered at Waterloo on 18 June 1815, Murat desperately tried to cling to power by attempting a futile invasion of Calabria. He was easily captured and sentenced to death by firing squad. As he stood for his executioners, he (in true "Dandy King" fashion) reportedly kissed a portrait of his wife and exclaimed: "Soldiers, do your duty! Aim for the heart but spare the face!"
With Napoleon's defeat, the Austrian Empire largely regained control of Italy. But the French Revolution, with its ideals of national self-determination, continued to inspire political upheavals that eventually manifested in revolution. Alexandre Dumas played his own part in this revolution, joining its foremost military leader, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and publishing a biography that helped to immortalize his reputation.
Murat:
Extracts:
- "... mad Hotspur and plumed Murat at its head; pouring right forward in a continuous frothy cascade, which curled over, and fell upon the glassy sea before it." (Mardi, 1.36)
- "If in some cases a bit of a nautical Murat in setting forth his person ashore, the Handsome Sailor of the period in question evinced nothing of the dandified Billy-be-Dam..." (Billy Budd, 1)
- "... a high-spirited young gentleman, who always hunted his buffalo, somewhat like Murat charging at the head of cavalry - in wild and ornate attire." ("Mr. Parkman's Tour")
- "And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight or ten in each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might easily have overarched the middle ones, and so have gone round on their backs." (Moby-Dick, 87)
- "... there should be two ceaseless steeds for a bold man to ride,—the Land and the Sea; and like circus-men we should never dismount, but only be steadied and rested by leaping from one to the other" (Pierre, 26.1)
This meetup is part of the series Fig Leaves and Fancy Pants.
- Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)Link visible for attendees
The manuscript of Billy Budd was left incomplete when Melville died in 1891, lending prescience to the declaration (from Moby-Dick, chapter 25) that "if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling."
But aside from Melville's first-hand experience at sea, Billy Budd's glory also derives from the Somers mutiny of 1842 and eighteenth-century British naval law. The novella's subtitle--"an inside narrative"--obliquely links it to his cousin Gansevoort, who had been aboard the U.S. Brig Somers when the mutiny occurred. (Another interpretation links it to Melville's father-in-law, chief justice Lemuel Shaw, for his role in enforcing the notorious Fugitive Slave Act.)
The story is retrospectively set in 1797, amid a rising tide of mutinies and worldwide revolutionary movements. Enter Billy Budd, "the handsome sailor"--Melville's presumptive answer to the dandy--whose moral innocence portends an equally subversive counter-revolution.
Billy Budd is a classic in the fields of law and literature. In the words of Robert L. Gale: "The rich, imagistic, and allusive style of Billy Budd has intrigued readers, but it is the psychological nature of the three principle characters that has challenged the critics. In what ways is Billy Budd a Christ figure? What does his stammer symbolize? To what degree is Captain Vere an admirable naval officer and father figure? What is his motivation? Is Claggart an unmitigated Satan? Is Billy Budd to be read as Melville's testament of faith or as an ironic document concerning fallen humanity?"
Note: This meetup will be recorded for private use.
Billy Budd:
Supplemental:
- "Billy Budd" (1955 adaptation starring William Shatner)
- "The Curse of the Somers" documentary
- "The Spithead and Nore Mutiny 1797" documentary
- "Noetic" podcast
- "(Sub)text" podcast
- "Billy Budd" (1951 opera by Benjamin Britten)
- Gil Bailie lectures
This meetup is part of the series Fig Leaves and Fancy Pants.
