Benito Cereno is a novella or short novel by Herman Melville. A novella is a written, Fictional Prose Narrative longer than a Novelette but shorter than a Novel. A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story Herman Melville (August 1 1819 &ndash September 28 1891 was an American novelist Short story writer Essayist and poet It was first serialized in Putnam's Monthly in 1855 and later included in slightly revised version in his collection The Piazza Tales (1856). Putnam’s Monthly Magazine of American Literature Science and Art was a monthly periodical published by G Year 1855 ( MDCCCLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common year The Piazza Tales is a collection of short stories by Herman Melville, which he published with Dix & Edwards in 1856 in the United States. Year 1856 ( MDCCCLVI) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap year
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Background
The novella centers on a slave rebellion on board a Spanish merchant ship in 1799 and because of its ambiguity has been read by some as racist and pro-slavery and by others as anti-racist and abolitionist text (Newman 1986). A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by slaves. Slave rebellions have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery and are amongst the most feared events Abolitionism was a political movement of the 18th and 19th century which sought to make Slavery illegal particularly in the United States and British West Indies Earlier critics, however, had seen Benito Cereno as a tale that primarily explores human depravity and does not reflect upon race at all (for example Feltenstein 1947). The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing Humans into Populations or groups on the basis of various sets Melville's most recent biographer, Andrew Delbanco, emphasizes the topicality of "Benito Cereno" in a post-September 11th world: "In our own time of terror and torture, Benito Cereno has emerged as the most salient of Melville's works: a tale of desperate men in the grip of a vengeful fury that those whom they hate cannot begin to understand". [1]
The primary source for the plot, as well as some of the text, was Amasa Delano's Narrative of Voyages and Travels, in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, chapter 18 (1817),[2] though Benito Cereno contains crucial changes and expansions that make it a very different text. The most transformative change lies in the narrator, or rather in the way in which the tale is told: The crucial information that the slave rebellion, in which all the senior Spanish seamen bar the captain Don Benito Cereno have been murdered, is withheld from the reader. A narrator (or the extremely rarely used female equivalent narratress) is within any story (literary work movie play verbal account etc The Spanish sailors, and specifically Cereno, are forced to play along in a theatrical performance for the benefit of the American Amasa Delano who initially approaches the dilapidated Spanish ship to offer his assistance. The narrator takes the point of view of Delano throughout the first and longest part of the narrative and therefore remains limited to what Delano sees (or thinks he sees). A narrative or story is a construct created in a suitable format (written spoken poetry prose images song Theater, or Dance) that describes a sequence of Delano represents a version of New England innocence, which has also been read as strategy to ensure colonial power over both Spain and Africans in the "New World" (cf. History See also History of New England New England's earliest inhabitants were Algonquian -speaking Native Americans including the Sundquist 1993). Babo, who plays the faithful body servant to the Spanish captain (representing European aristocracy and decadence), is the master-mind behind both the revolt and the subsequent subterfuge. The enslaved Africans have ruthlessly killed their "owner", Alexandro Aranda, and other key officers on the ship to force the captain and the remaining crew to take them back to Africa. To some earlier critics, Babo represented evil, but more recent criticism has moved to reading Babo as the heroic leader of a slave rebellion, whose tragic failure does not diminish the genius of the rebels. In an inversion of contemporary racial stereotypes, Babo is portrayed as a physically weak man of great intellect, his head (impaled on a spike at the end of the story) a "hive of subtlety". [3] In contrast, the supposedly civilized American Delano is duped by Babo and his comrades for the duration of the novella, only ultimately defeating him and rescuing the distraught Cereno through brute strength.
Adaptations
- Robert Lowell, "Benito Cereno" (1964, Part of the trilogy "The Old Glory")
- Yusef Komunyakaa, "Captain Amasa Delano's Dilemma" (in American Poetry Review, 1996)
- Jay Bushman, "goodcaptain" (2007, experiment in online storytelling)
References
Sources
- Delbanco, Andrew. Robert Lowell (March 1 1917&ndashSeptember 12 1977 born Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV, was an American Poet whose works confessional in nature Yusef Komunyakaa (b 1947-04-29) is an American poet who currently teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers Melville: His World and Work. New York: Knopf, 2005. ISBN 0-375-40314-0
- Feltenstein, Rosalie. "Melville's Benito Cereno. " American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 19. 3 (1947): 245-55.
- McCall, Dan. Melville's Short Novels: Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism. New York, NY: Norton, 2002.
- Newman, Lea Bertani Vozar. "Benito Cereno. " A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of Herman Melville. Ed. Lea Bertani Vozar Newman. A Reference Publication in Literature. Boston, MA: G. K. Hall, 1986.
- Sale, Maggie Montesinos. The Slumbering Volcano: American Slave Ship Revolts and the Production of Rebellious Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1997.
- Stuckey, Sterling. "The Tambourine in Glory: African Culture and Melville's Art. " The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville. Ed. Robert S. Levine. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge, UK & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 37-64.
- Sundquist, Eric J. To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature. Cambridge, MA. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993.
External Links
- Benito Cereno. The full text of the version published in The Piazza Tales (1856), which is the version that is usually anthologized.
- Putnam's Monthly at the "Making of America" site of Cornell University, a site that has digital images of many significant nineteenth century books and periodicals. "Benito Cereno" was serialized in the October, November and December issues of 1855.
- Perspectives in American Literature, Chapter 3: Early Nineteenth Century: Herman Melville (1819-1891), Benito Cereno. Additional references for "Benito Cereno. " The site also contains other useful links relating to Herman Melville and American literature.
- GradeSaver study guide, history and quizzes on Benito Cereno.
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