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

• The author mentions all of the following as requirements for slang expressions to be created EXCEPT ......

• The word "their" in line 12 refers to .......

• The word "they" in the passage refers to ______.

ZUNIA12

• The word “pseudonym” in the passage refers to ___________.

• A paragraph following the passage would most probably discuss_________.

• What did researchers discover in the study of honeybees discussed in paragraph 2?

• The word "origins" in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______.

• Which form other than oral speech would be most commonly used among the blind people?

• The word "supported" in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to _______.

• In the process of drying certain kinds of fruits, sulphur fumes help ______.

• The seashore was a barrier for descendants of fish-type because………

• The four boys of the Beatles ...............

• According to the passage, what group of people will probably first from the use of the microprocessor?

• The beverages mentioned in the first paragraph aim to give consumers  .............

• The pronoun "they" in the second paragraph refers to ..........

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

• The word “splendors” in the passage could be best replaced by which of the following?

• According to the passage, the first refrigerated railcar used what material as a cooling agent?

• The researcher mentioned in the passage are concerned about unwanted noise because it can_________.

• Which of the following volunteer activities is NOT mentioned in the passage?