Dana Luciano
Department of English
Georgetown University
July 2009
Proposal for a Broadview Edition
of Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno
Herman Melville’s novella Benito Cereno, first published in Putnam’s Monthly
Magazine in the last three months of 1855, is now recognized as one of the most important
literary works of the American nineteenth century. Inspired by an account of a shipboard
slave rebellion discovered within the autobiography of an American sea captain, Melville’s
masterpiece received little critical or popular attention in his own day, though this deficit
has been amply remedied in the past few decades. The tale’s ambiguity and shifts in
perspective, as well as its obvious cultural and ethical relevance, have made it a perennial
favorite in college classrooms. The purpose of this proposed Broadview edition of Benito
Cereno will be to support this ongoing interest by providing students, teachers and scholars
with an authoritative and richly contextualized edition that supplements the novella’s own
attention to questions of historical memory.
Benito Cereno presents a compellingly good case for a Broadview edition, not only
because of its suggestive connections to a number of contemporary historical issues, as
amply documented in recent criticism, but also because the tale itself serves as a repository
of archival material. Melville’s narrative is based upon a chapter from an 1817 sea
narrative, Amasa Delano’s Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern
Hemispheres. The novella incorporates within its pages a sheaf of extracts from legal
documents drawn directly from that narrative, as well as a number of additional historical
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allusions and emendations. Building upon these layers of history, the novella implicitly
challenges the reader with questions of historical and contextual interpretation. The crux of
the tale is Captain Delano’s initial failure to recognize the slave rebellion that has taken
place aboard the Spanish ship he believes to be captained by Don Benito Cereno, an
interpretive failure that results, in part, from the limits of Delano’s knowledge and
experience. Melville’s narrative technique at once aligns the reader with Delano’s limited
perspective while encouraging him or her, by means of these historical allusions and other
clues, to look beyond that perspective, foregrounding both the difficulty and the necessity
of historically informed interpretation.
Scholarly takes on Benito Cereno in the past three decades have highlighted the
extent to which the novella is, as H. Bruce Franklin puts it, “thoroughly and dynamically
infused with history.” Certainly there has been no shortage of work detailing the novella’s
connection to the pressing concerns of Melville’s day: most notably the transatlantic slave
trade and resulting debates over the practice of slavery, but also the legacy of European
colonialism and the push for American expansionism. Running alongside these has been a
thread of inquiry into the ways the text engages not only the content but also the form of
history. These critical traditions, taken together, implicitly point toward the set of
questions dominating contemporary developments in Americanist literary scholarship
overall: how to reframe American literary history in ways less bounded by conventional
constructions of time and space, period and nation. This new scholarly interest in the
transnational and transhistorical implications of literary works, evidenced by recent special
issues of journals such as PMLA, American Literary History, ESQ and American
Literature, is central to my proposed Broadview edition of the work, which foregrounds
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both the transnational dimensions of the novella and its dynamic relationship to history. In
addition to an annotated edition of the story, critical introduction, chronology, and
extensive bibliography, this edition will contain primary source materials selected and
arranged to support a number of critical and pedagogical contexts for Melville’s novella.
Beginning with reviews and other materials connected to the tale’s initial publication, the
edition will then address several dimensions of the slavery question: the origins and history
of the transatlantic slave trade, the domestic debate over slavery, and the transnational
history of slave uprisings and rebellions. Additional appendices will present documents on
empire and “manifest destiny,” on maritime narratives and travel writing, and on questions
of historical memory and commemoration in 19th century America. A final appendix will
look toward the future of Benito Cereno by examining two twentieth-century responses to
the tale: Robert Lowell’s verse play Benito Cereno and Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem
“Captain Amasa Delano’s Dilemma.” This final section will prompt readers to consider the
ways in which this tale, and its concern with historical memory, has itself been remembered
at other moments of crisis in American history.
The text itself poses few editorial difficulties; I anticipate using the 1856 Piazza
Tales edition of the text, with variations from the original Putnam’s edition noted in an
appendix. Explanatory notes would be devoted to identifying allusions and historical
references, and to clarifying and/or highlighting certain details (for instance, noting that the
name of the Spanish ship in the story, the San Domingo, was changed by Melville from the
Tryal, the name of the ship in Delano’s narrative, in order to highlight the memory of the
Haitian revolution.) Melville’s novella is around 34000 words (usually 75 or so pages),
while the chapter from Delano’s narrative is roughly 14000 words or 30 pages. Since I
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anticipate including a number of primary documents to supplement Melville’s brief but rich
narrative, I estimate that the total length of the work will be 200 pages or so. I will, of
course, adjust the length of the introduction and appendices according to editorial guidance
from the Press. I plan to include some non-textual material in the appendices: specifically,
visual images documenting the slave trade, the struggle against slavery, and styles of
commemoration. If this proposal is accepted, I can complete the manuscript by September
of 2010.
I believe the proposed Broadview edition of Benito Cereno would find a wide
audience of scholars, teachers and students. The polysemous nature of the novella renders it
ideal for a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses, from transnational literature
courses to surveys of 19th century US Literature to courses on writing about slavery; from
classes on the literature of terror to introductory surveys focusing on narrative technique
and other formal issues. I have taught the tale in 19th century American surveys, in a
seminar on the American Renaissance, in an American Gothic Literature class and in a
course on captivity narratives. The tale’s broad pedagogical possibilities are a key reason
why the proposed Broadview edition would succeed, as the proposed range of appendices
for the novella would make the edition ideal for a number of classroom contexts. There are
several editions of Benito Cereno in print, but nothing that would serve the same purpose as
the proposed Broadview edition. The most recent scholarly edition is Wyn Kelley’s
Bedford College edition, but other than a reprint of the relevant chapter from Delano’s
narrative, there are no historical materials included. Other editions are the Dover Thrift
edition of Bartleby and Benito Cereno; a Penguin Classics edition of Billy Budd and Other
Stories, a Norton Critical Edition of Melville’s short novels, and numerous editions of The
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Piazza Tales. While the Norton Critical Edition, edited by Dan McCall, contains a
“Contexts” section with a few contemporary sources for each novel, the focus of the edition
is on present-day criticism, and space limitations mean that there is no historical material
directly connected to Benito Cereno other than Delano’s chapter and a short passage from
Melville’s novel Typee concerning cannibals. The proposed edition would correct this
deficit, offering students and teachers the ability to examine the relationships between
Melville’s masterpiece and a number of contemporary historical issues, while also
highlighting the literary legacy of the tale.
Overview
Introduction:
The introduction will provide a biographical introduction to Herman Melville, a
review of Melville’s oeuvre, and an assessment of the vicissitudes of his reputation as a
writer. Furthermore, the introduction will offer a broad overview of the history of critical
responses to Benito Cereno, highlighting several key frameworks in which the tale might
be considered. This section will be supplemented by an extensive critical biography.
Appendices:
I will devote the appendices to the following subjects:
A. Background on the Tale
Here I will include the introduction to the first edition of Putnam’s Monthly Magazine, in
which Benito Cereno was first serialized, in order to suggest the type of readership the tale
would initially have been expected to garner. I will also include two reviews of The Piazza
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Tales, Melville’s 1856 collection, in which Benito Cereno was reprinted; the selected
reviews single out Benito Cereno for special mention.
B. Slave Rebellions and Uprisings
This section will contain documents connected to the history of slave uprisings and
rebellions. The section begins with an excerpt from a biography of Toussaint L’Overture.
since the Haitian revolution is an obviously important intertext for Benito Cereno. Justice
Joseph Story’s 1841 decision concerning the 1839 Amistad case, in which the slaves aboard
a Spanish slave ship revolted; this case, as Carolyn Karcher has shown, also serves as a key
intertext for Benito Cereno, will also be included. Lydia Maria Child’s editorial “The Slave
Murders,” responding to a reported case of slaves killing their masters, insists that the
slave’s perspective must be, and rarely is, considered in such cases. An excerpt from
Frederick Douglass’s novella The Heroic Slave will close this section. This novella, based
upon the 1841 rebellion aboard the Creole, makes an interesting point of comparison to
Benito Cereno.
C. The Debate over Slavery
This section will contain a number of documents pertaining to the transatlantic history of
slavery and to the debate over slavery in Melville’s day. The first document, an excerpt
from the fifth chapter of George Bancroft’s History of the United States, discusses the role
of Spain in the founding of the transatlantic slave trade. An excerpt from chapter nine of
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin depicts the sentimental didactic writing style,
which, as Peter Coviello and other critics have argued, Melville deliberately opposed in
Benito Cereno. The chapter from David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the
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World both outlines the degradation of slavery and critiques the racial “science” which
undergirds the pro-slavery arguments in the next two selections, a passage from William
Harper’s Memoir on Slavery and Josiah Nott’s essay. The article from Putnam’s, which
appeared in the same issue as the first installment of Benito Cereno, satirizes white
stereotypes of African Americans. Finally, the image from Harpers’ Weekly, depicting
freed slaves crowded aboard the deck of the illegal slave-trading ship that brought them
from Africa and sought to sell them in Cuba, speaks poignantly to the conditions aboard
slave ships.
D. Empire and “Manifest Destiny”
This section links Benito Cereno to the question of empire, both the “Old World” empire
brought into the story by Spain and the nascent American one. The excerpt from Stirling’s
biography of Charles V resonates with the ghostliness and pallor of Benito Cereno, and its
metaphoric depiction of a crumbling Spanish empire. Lyman Beecher’s A Plea for the West
defends westward expansion by insisting that Protestant America must counter the forces of
Catholicism; Benito Cereno reflects ironically on this type of argument, as neither the
Catholic Spaniards nor the Protestant American sailors can lay claim to the moral high
ground in the tale. The Putnam’s article “Cuba” defends annexation as a new and peaceful
form of empire-building which will eventually lead to global unity. The Ostend Manifesto
also defends American annexation of Cuba, in part on the grounds (excerpted for this
volume) that Spanish mismanagement of the island will produce a dangerous slave
rebellion similar to the one in Haiti. The excerpt from Matthew Maury’s oceanographic
study of the Amazon is noteworthy for its suggestion that slavery, blocked from further
Westward expansion by the 1850 Compromise, might instead be extended southward, into
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Latin America, a position popular with many Southerners and expansionists during the
1850s.
E. Maritime Narratives and Travel Writing
This section contains sailor narratives and other examples of travel writing specifically or
thematically linked to Benito Cereno. The chapter from Amasa Delano’s sea narrative,
upon which Melville based the novella, will be included here. Leggett’s story is a prime
example of “sea Gothic,” a genre to which Benito Cereno might also be said to belong.
The ethnographic reflections of Mungo Park and John Ledyard are both directly referenced
in different versions of the novella; in the Putnam’s version, Melville refers to the writing
of Mungo Park, but the reference is changed to John Ledyard in the Piazza Tales
collection, presumably owing to the realization that Park was quoting Ledyard on the
question of African women. Finally, the excerpt from Thomas Bowditch’s book depicts the
customs of the Ashantee, also referenced in Melville’s tale.
F. Commemoration and Historical Memory
This section, an important new contribution to the historical contextualization of Benito
Cereno, will take up contemporary reflections on the role of history in shaping national
consciousness and on the omissions of such histories. The Puritan headstone, with its
skeletal imagery, has been linked by Geoffrey Sanborn and other scholars to Benito
Cereno’s melancholy perspective on history, and resonates suggestively alongside the use
of Don Aranda’s skeleton for the San Domingo’s figurehead within the tale. Daniel
Webster’s dedication of the Bunker Hill monument (which was also invoked in the
dedication to Melville’s novella Israel Potter, serialized in Putnam’s a few months before
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Benito Cereno) insists on the patriotic necessity of historical consciousness, while
Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” powerfully demonstrates
the erasures perpetuated by that consciousness. Finally, an anonymous fictional pamphlet
from Melville’s novel Mardi also takes up the question of the importance of historical
memory; the pamphlet’s insistence on the need to attend to the past implicitly, as Allan
Moore Emery has shown, rebukes the Young American movement for its exceptionalist
failure to take history into account.
G. Literary Responses to Benito Cereno
This section extends the discussion of historical memory into the 20th century by
incorporating two literary works based upon Benito Cereno. Robert Lowell’s verse play,
written and produced during the civil rights movement, draws upon but crucially alters
some aspects of Benito Cereno, while Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem also seeks to re-imagine
the story from the perspective of Delano and the vantage point of the mid-1990s.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Herman Melville: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Benito Cereno
A. Background on the Tale
1. “Introductory,” Putnam's Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Science and Art
(January 1853)
2. Selected Reviews of The Piazza Tales:
from The Criterion (31 May 1856)
from The Knickerbocker, XLVIII (September 1856)
B. Slave Rebellions and Uprisings
1. J.R. Beard, from Toussaint L’Ouverture: A Biography and Autobiography (1863).
2. Joseph Story, United States v. Libellants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad, 1841.
2. Lydia Maria Child, “The Slave Murders,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, June 23,
1841.
3. Frederick Douglass, from The Heroic Slave (1852)
C. The Debate over Slavery
1. George Bancroft, from History of the Colonization of the United States (1834)
2. Harriet Beecher Stowe, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly (1852)
3. David Walker, “Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Slavery” (from David Walker’s
Appeal, 1830)
4. William Harper, from Memoir on Slavery (1838)
5. Josiah Clark Nott, from An Essay on the Natural History of Mankind, Viewed in
Connection with Negro Slavery (1851)
6. Anonymous. Putnam’s Monthly Magazine, “About Niggers” (October 1855)
7. Image: “Liberated Africans on Deck of Bark ‘Wildfire,’” Harper's Weekly, June 2, 1860.
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D. Empire and “Manifest Destiny”
1. William Stirling, from The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles V (1852)
2. Lyman Beecher, from A Plea for the West (1835)
3. “Cuba,” Putnam’s Monthly Magazine (January 1853)
4. James Buchanan et. al., Ostend Manifesto (1854)
5. Matthew F. Maury, from The Amazon, and the Atlantic Slopes of South America (1853)
E. Maritime Narratives and Travel Writing
1. Amasa Delano, Narrative of Voyages and Travels, in the Northern and Southern
Hemispheres, chapter 18.
2. William Leggett, “The Encounter—A Scene at Sea” (1834)
3. Mungo Park, from “Travel in the Interior Districts of Africa” (1816)
4. John Ledyard, from Memoirs of the Life and Travels of John Ledyard (1828)
5. Thomas Bowdich, from Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee: with A
Description of that Kingdom (1819)
F. Commemoration and Historical Memory
1) Puritan headstone, illustration
2) Daniel Webster, “Bunker Hill Oration” (1825)
3) Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (1852)
4) Herman Melville, from Mardi (1849)
G. Literary Responses to Benito Cereno
1. Robert Lowell, Benito Cereno (1964)
2. Yusef Komunyakaa, “Captain Amasa Delano’s Dilemma” (1996)
Select Bibliography