Billy Budd and Historical Evidence: A Rejoinder

Billy Budd and Historical Evidence: A RejoinderAuthor(s): Bernard SuitsSource: Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Dec., 1963), pp. 288-291Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2932399 .

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288 Nineteenth-Century Fiction Billy Budd AND HISTORICAL EVIDENCE: A REJOINDER

In order adequately to assess the argument presented in Ray B. Browne's "Billy Budd; Gospel of Democracy,"' it is necessary to notice that it consists of two related but distinguishable theses: (1) that the novel can be interpreted as an affirmation of the ulti- mate victory of political liberalism (represented by Billy together with Melville-as-narrator) over conservatism (represented by Cap- tain Vere), and (2) that Melville's source for this conflict was the conflict in political philosophy between Thomas Paine and Ed- mund Burke. It is necessary to distinguish the two theses because it is not always clear from Professor Browne's exposition how he means them to be related to each other. Is the second thesis intended to support the first, or the first the second? Is Browne advancing historical evidence in support of a literary interpretation, or is he using a literary interpretation as evidence in support of a historical fact? Or is he attempting to do both of these things at once?

Browne's intention at the outset of his paper seems clear enough. Since he espouses what must be regarded as a heterodox interpretation of Billy Budd ("Instead of being the voice of the author, Vere is in fact Melville's antagonist" [p. 321]), the reader is justified in expecting this interpretation to be supported by evidence com- pelling enough to raise serious doubts about the orthodox interpretation.2 That the evidence will be historical in character is indicated by Browne's statement a few sentences later that "Mel- ville naturally chose as spokesmen for those opposing ideologies those authors and their books that were contemporary with the setting of the story" (p. 322), viz., Burke's Reflections on the Revo-

'NCF, XVII (March, 1963), 321-337. Specific references to Professor Browne's ar- ticle will be made in the body of the present reply.

2By "orthodox interpretation" I mean a view of the novel held, for example, by Wendell Glick ("Expediency and Absolute Morality in Billy Budd"), by Maxim in Lionel Trilling's The Middle of the Journey, and by the adaptors of the Billy Budd which appeared on "Playhouse 90" a few years ago. Whatever their differences, these readings of the novel (and certainly additional examples could easily be found) are agreed in regarding the central conflict as occurring within Captain Vere rather than between Melville and Vere. An important passage in support of this view is worth noting, for it is a passage to which Browne makes no reference. The narrator states: "The essential right and wrong involved in the matter, the clearer that might be, so much the worse for the responsibility of a loyal sea commander inasmuch as he was not authorized to determine the matter on that primitive basis" (Billy Budd and Typee, ed. Maxwell Geismar [New York, 1962], p. 66).



Notes and Reviews 289 lution in France and Paine's Rights of Man. In order to support his interpretation of the novel, Browne must evidently establish, at a minimum, two facts: (1) that Melville did indeed choose Paine and Burke as his spokesmen, and (2) if he did, that his sympathies were wholly with Paine and wholly against Burke. It becomes in- creasingly obvious as Browne's argument continues that the historical evidence is not adequate to even the first of these tasks. The evidence is either exceedingly general or exceedingly indirect; e.g., the Paine-Burke controversy was very much in the air in the 'eighties, and Melville "apparently" owned a copy of Burke's work on the sublime. Browne has no doubt indicated a climate of opinion surrounding Melville in the 'eighties and 'nineties, and he has pointed out the likelihood of Melville's familiarity with the political philosophies in question. But these things might have been stipulated without serious objection. The point at issue is not whether Melville could, historically, have written the novel Professor Browne thinks he wrote, but whether, as a matter of fact, Paine and Burke were Melville's sources. In attempting to establish this point, Browne has employed a method which promises to be, but which in the event only appears to be, historical. What one would like, in support of the thesis in question, is documen- tary evidence of Melville's choice of sources, since this would help to establish Melville's literary intention and thus illuminate the meaning of the novel. Browne reverses this method. Since there is no direct historical evidence for the fact he wishes to establish, he employs indirect evidence, and he is convinced he finds such evidence in the novel itself. However, whether one can find such evidence in the novel depends upon interpreting the novel in such a way that the evidence is there to be found. It turns out that to a considerable extent the fact which is to support the interpretation can be established only by accepting the interpretation the fact is intended to support.

One example must suffice to illustrate the circularity of Browne's method. In adopting an anti-Vere interpretation of Billy Budd, Browne allies himself with those readers who "find in Melville's treatment of Vere an irony which turns all forms of 'acceptance' into 'resistance,' and makes of the Captain a caricature of what he appears to be" (p. 321). With only the passing observation that irony, like beauty, is often solely in the eye of the beholder, let us consider the following comment by Melville on Vere: "Though



290 Nineteenth-Century Fiction allied to the higher nobility his advancement had not been alto- gether owing to influences connected with that circumstance."' Browne comments on this passage as follows: "The irony in the portrait of Vere which Melville presents proves the author's hostility to him. It also makes the Captain blood brother to Burke. Vere does not owe all [Browne's, but not Melville's, italics] his advancement to his 'influences.' Neither did Burke; he was very capable, but his rise resulted from his alliance with the Rockingham Whigs, and throughout life he had clung to powerful political leaders" (p. 329). The question is, which of two methods is Browne using when he makes judgments such as this? If he had previously established that Burke was Melville's original for Vere, and if in addition to that he had established Melville's antagonism to Burke, then one might be persuaded of the irony of the passage and of the author's hostility to his character. But if the passage is itself to be taken as evidence for Melville's choice of, and attitude toward, Burke, then that choice and attitude cannot be advanced as evidence for its ironic and hostile character.

Browne has evidently confused two different methods, each directed to a different end. An independently documented fact about an author may be used to assist in the interpretation of his work, and a literary work may be used as evidence for a fact about its author. But the two methods cannot be used simultaneously with respect to the same fact without begging the question.

At times Browne seems to be the victim of an elaborate delusion, in which everything in the world of Billy Budd appears to him as either a Paine-thing or a Burke-thing. His commentary on the following passage illustrates the extent to which his judgment is dominated by this obsession. Melville writes:

To some extent the Nore Mutiny may be regarded as analogous to the distempering irruption of contagious fever in a frame constitutionally sound, and which anon throws it off.'

Browne comments:

Here is dramatically mirrored one of the great arguments between Burke and Paine. Burke insisted that the English had a constitution tacitly recognized by all-and followed by the king and the lawmakers.

I Geismar, op. cit., p. 23. 4Ibid., p. 18.



Notes and Reviews 291 But Paine claimed that there was no English constitution-no invio- lable document-unless it could be seen in writing. The French, on the contrary, had a Constitution. This written agreement guaranteed protection of the people. It assured soundness to the body politic. Melville, then, was agreeing with Paine that within the framework of a sound constitution mankind could be assured of progress, but without such a guarantee nothing could be certain (p. 327).

It is hard to understand how Browne makes the transition from the phrase "constitutionally sound," which is evidently a physio- logical metaphor, to a discussion of the relative merits of the British and French political constitutions. And even if that could be understood, it would be far from clear why, on the basis of the passage quoted, the comparison should be detrimental to England and, by association, to Burke. What seems perfectly clear is that Melville is of the opinion that England was stable enough to con- tain a mutiny instead of permitting it to flame into general rebellion.

The historical evidence submitted by Browne is not of sufficient weight to compel the rejection of an interpretation incompatible with Browne's interpretation. On the contrary, an interpretation of the novel at once less arcane and intrinsically more plausible would not only render Browne's interpretation less plausible, it would also invalidate most of the historical inferences Browne has drawn from that interpretation.

BERNARD SUITS Purdue University

HENRY NASH SMITH, Mark Twain, the Development of a Writer

For a long time now, Twain scholars have been a strange breed in the study of literature, American or otherwise. They direct their concern less at the work than at the man, rather like the scholars a couple of generations ago who looked at a Byron poem as an excuse for examining Byron's incestuous relations with his half sister, or at a Shelley poem as an excuse for talking about Trelaw- ney's snatching the burning heart from the fire. Sometimes they discuss-or appear to discuss-theme, structure, style, and the like, as Henry Nash Smith says he does:

This book considers first the problems of style and structure Mark



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Billy Budd and Historical Evidence: A Rejoinder