19th Century
Herman Melville
1819–1891
“I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance.”
Herman Melville was an American novelist and former sailor whose major work, , turns a whaling voyage into a study of monomaniacal will. Captain Ahab's hunt for the white whale fixes desire on a private object until profit, prudence, and the lives of the crew no longer constrain it. The whale becomes a mask for an offense Ahab cannot name. Ahab will not stop. Later psychology of obsession still recognizes in him the figure of a want that has become a whole life.
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