Herman Melville, an American author best known today for his novel Moby Dick, was actually more popular during his lifetime for some of his other works. He traveled extensively and used the knowledge gained during his travels as the basis for his early novels. In 1837, at the age of eighteen, Melville signed as a cabin boy on a merchant ship that was to sail from his Massachusetts home to Liverpool, England. His experiences on this trip served as a basis for the novel Redburn (1849). In 1841 Melville set out on a whaling ship headed for the South Seas. After jumping ship in Tahiti, he wandered around the islands of Tahiti and Moorea. This South Sea island sojourn was a backdrop to the novel Omoo (1847). After three years away from home, Melville joined up with a U.S. naval frigate that was returning to the eastern United States around Cape Horn. The novel White-Jacket (1850) describes this lengthy voyage as a navy seaman.

With the publication of these early adventure novels, Melville developed a strong and loyal following among readers eager for his tales of exotic places and situations. However, in 1851, with the publication of Moby Dick, Melville's popularity started to diminish. Moby Dick, on one level the saga of the hunt for the great white whale, was also a heavily symbolic allegory of the heroic struggle of man against the universe. The public was not ready for Melville's literary metamorphosis from romantic adventure to philosophical symbolism. It is ironic that the novel that served to diminish Melville's popularity during his lifetime is the one for which he is best known today.

The passage implies that Melville stayed in Tahiti because ...........

Câu hỏi liên quan

• Which of the following is a kind of petal?

• According to the passage, which of the following is a universal rule of etiquette?

• According to the first paragraph, how is the life changed since our parents time?

ZUNIA12

• The word “itself” in paragraph 3 refers to ________.

• The word “displaced” in line 6 is closest in meaning to _________ .

• Which of the following is mentioned as the main cause of the destruction of Mantle’s body?

• Most of the public assistance programs ______ after the severe economic crisis.

• In the first paragraph, Bradstreet, Warren, and Adams are mentioned to show that ...........

• A “calamitous” tsunami, in line 17, is one that is _________

• According to the passage, the difficulty in diagnosing allergies to foods is due to ___________.

• According to the passage, a regional university rector in Germany is elected by _____.

• Who doesn’t usually wear suits and ties?

• How would the author probably characterize the people who are mentioned in the first line of the second paragraph .............

• The word "frustrating" in paragraph 7 is closest in meaning to ______.

• The word which in the second paragraph refers to _______.

• The word “classic” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ............

• The author suggests that to remember lessons, aural learners can ................

• The expression “Curiously enough” is used because the author finds it strange that ............

• What does “they” refer to?

• The price of a computer is now _____________