Billy Budd (novella)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other works with the same name, see Billy Budd.
Billy Budd is a novella begun around 1886 by Herman Melville, completed but not published before his death. The work has been central to Melville scholarship since it was discovered in manuscript among Melville's papers in 1924 and published the same year.
It has an ignominious editorial history, as poor transcription and misinterpretation of Melville's notes on the manuscript marred the first published editions of the text. For example, early versions gave the book's title as "Billy Budd, Foretopman," while it now seems clear Melville intended "Billy Budd, Sailor"; some versions wrongly included a chapter that Melville had excised as a preface (the correct text has no preface); some versions fail to correct the name of the ship to Bellipotent (from the Latin bella war and potens power), from Indomitable, as Melville called her in an earlier draft.
In 1962, Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr. established what is now considered the correct text; it was published by the University of Chicago Press, and most editions printed since then follow the Hayford/Sealts text. One of the most influential twentieth century versions of the story was the libretto by E M Forster and Eric Crozier for Billy Budd (opera), 1951, by Benjamin Britten.
Contents |
[edit] Popular interpretation
A story ultimately about good and evil, Billy Budd has often been interpreted allegorically, with Billy interpreted typologically as Christ or the Biblical Adam, with Claggart (compared to a snake several times in the text) figured as Satan. Part of Claggart's hatred comes not despite Billy's goodness, but because of it. Claggart is also seen to be thought of as the Biblical Judas. The act of turning in an innocent man to authority and the allusion of the priest kissing Billy on the cheek before he dies, just as Judas kisses Jesus on the cheek when he was betrayed. Vere is often associated with Pontius Pilate. This theory stems mainly from the characteristics attributed to each man. Billy is innocent, often compared to a barbarian or a child, while Claggart is a representation of evil with a "depravity according to nature," a phrase Melville borrows from Plato. Vere, without a doubt the most conflicted character in the novel, is torn between his compassion for the "Handsome Sailor" and his martial adherence to the Articles of War.
[edit] Other contemporary interpretations
Some critics have conceptualized Billy Budd as a historical novel that attempts to evaluate man's relation to the past. Harold Schechter is a professor who has written a number of books on infamous American serial killers. He has often pointed out that the author's description of Claggart could be considered to be a definition of a sociopath, although Melville was writing at a time before the word "sociopath" was used.
In her book Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Sedgwick, expanding on earlier interpretations of the same themes, posits that the interrelationships between Billy, Claggart and Captain Vere are representations of male homosexual desire and the mechanisms of prohibition against this desire. She points out that Claggart's "natural depravity" which is defined tautologically as "depravity according to nature" and the accumulation of equivocal terms ("phenomenal", "mystery", etc.) used in the explanation of the fault in his character are an indication of his status as the central homosexual figure in the text. She also interprets the mutiny scare aboard the Bellipotent, the political circumstances that are at the center of the events of the story, as a portrayal of homophobia.
Thomas J. Scorza has written about the philosophical framework of the story and he understands the work as a comment on the historical feud between poets and philosophers. Melville, in this interpretation, is opposing the scientific, rational systems of thought, which Claggart's character represents, in favor of the more comprehensive poetic pursuit of knowledge embodied by Billy.
In the 1980s, Richard Weisberg of Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law advanced a reading of the novel based on his careful research into the history of the governing law. Based on his mining of statutory law and actual practice in the Royal Navy in the era in which the book takes place, Weisberg rejects the traditional reading of Captain Vere as a good man trapped by bad law and proposes instead that Vere deliberately distorted the applicable substantive and procedural law to bring about Billy's death. The most fully worked-out version of Weisberg's argument can be found in chapters 8 and 9 of his book The Failure of the Word: The Lawyer as Protagonist in Modern Fiction [orig. ed., 1984; expanded ed., 1989].
[edit] The story
The plot follows Billy Budd, a seaman pressed into service aboard the HMS Bellipotent in the year 1797, when the British Navy was reeling from two major mutinies and was threatened by Napoleon's military ambitions. Billy, suffused with innocence, openness, and natural charisma, is adored by the crew, but for unexplained reasons arouses the antagonism of the ship's Master-at-Arms, John Claggart, who falsely accuses Billy of conspiracy to mutiny. When Claggart brings his charges to the Captain, the Hon. Edward Fairfax "Starry" Vere, Vere summons both Claggart and Billy to his cabin for a private confrontation. When, in Billy's and Vere's presence, Claggart makes his false charges, Billy is unable to find the words to respond, due to a speech impediment. Unable to express himself verbally, he lashes out seemingly involuntarily at Claggart, killing him with a single blow. Vere, an eminently thoughtful man whose name recalls the Latin words "veritas" (truth) and "vir" (man) as well as the English word "veer," then convenes a drumhead court-martial. He then intervenes in the deliberations of the court-martial panel to argue them into convicting Billy, despite their and his belief in Billy's innocence before God. Vere claims to be following the letter of the Mutiny Act and the Articles of War, but recent scholarship suggests otherwise. At his insistence, the court-martial convicts Billy; Vere argues that any appearance of weakness in the officers and failure to enforce discipline could stir the already-turbulent waters of mutiny throughout the British fleet. Condemned to be hanged from the ship's yardarm at dawn the morning after the killing, Billy's final words are, "God bless Captain Vere!"
The story may have been based on events onboard USS Somers.
The novel has been adapted as a play, movie, and opera. See Billy Budd for more details.
[edit] Further reading
- Herman Melville (1924) Billy Budd, Sailor: An Inside Narrative -- The Definitive Text, Edited and Annotated by Harrison Hayford and Merton M Sealts Jr., University of Chicago Press
- Richard Weisberg (1989) The Failure of the Word: The Lawyer as Protagonist in Modern Fiction, Yale University Pres
