The Otherness of the Real in Herman Melville’s Em

Authors: Norah Ahmed AlMalki

Publish Date: 2016/05/14

Volume: 100, Issue: 4, Pages: 677-693

PDF Link

Abstract

Herman Melville’s 1819–1891 epic poem Clarel A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land 1876 demonstrates what poststructuralism would later discuss as the indeterminacy of meaning The 18000 line poem lends itself we believe to a literary reading which highlights what Jacques Lacan calls the “polyphony” of poetry its Real otherness Basically this article using Lacan’s theory of the Real will investigate how Clarel attempts to depict Real otherness the inaccessible dimension of human experience and how it as all human productions succeeded only in hinting at its presence The article will consider as well the significance of gaps whether physical or linguistic in demonstrating the impossibility of comprehending the Real Additionally it draws on possible interpretations of the various instances of silence in the poem and how these instances of the unspoken highlight the dumbness of the Real and its threatening nature

Keywords: