ENG 304: Melville & Ellison

Though separated by over a century, Herman Melville’s poem Clarel and Justin Simien’s movie Dear White People prove to have similar underlying themes. Melville’s poem follows an American man named…

The viewing of Dear White people and the subsequent discussion with Justin Simien was incredibly enlightening. What stuck out to me the most was this idea that the director brought…

A central theme in Dear White People, is the identity crises of all four of the central characters. What I liked about the film was that filmmaker Justin Simien chose…

Being Black today is a lot complex than it was 100 years ago. No longer is being Black the quality of having dark skin. No. It surpasses that; today being…

When reading Melville’s poetry at first I was reminded of the types of poetry that we are reading in my class on the Romantics. But I then figured I was…

This poem, coming at the end of Melville’s chronological composition of the war, seems to make a statement at the brokenness of the country that followed the closing of the…

Billy Budd was not what Herman Melville considered “finished” when he passed away, and as such further work may have been done on it. What ideas, thoughts, and plans did…

Billy Budd is a story that turned out nothing like I expected. What I thought was going to be a simple story about a young sailor turned out to be…

Herman Melville’s poem Shiloh is a written representation of the Battle of Shiloh that was fought in April 1862 in southwestern Tennessee. As we discussed in class, this battle marked…

I wanted to touch on the The Portent for a moment to discuss the positives of Melville’s poetry. Before I began reading the poetry for the book, I had my…