Melville Society

The Melville Society , is an organization for the study of author Herman Melville. Founded in 1945, the Society was a result of the Melville Revival of the 1920s and 1930s and is now the oldest American society devoted to a single literary figure. [1]

Its primary publication is Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, issued three times per year.[2] The society has formed a cultural project in collaboration with the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the host of the Melville Society Archive, and has an editorial office at Hofstra University.[3][4] It meets primarily at the American Literature Association and Modern Language Association annual conferences and has also held international meetings. It has approximately 400 members, comprising both individuals and institutions.[3]

Founding and history

The society was founded in February of 1945 by Harrison Hayford and Tyrus Hillway, who had both studied with Stanley Williams, the Yale professor of English. The membership included both academic and public figures involved in the Melville Revival of the 1920s and 1930s created a group of Melville enthusiasts, and in the late 1930s university graduate programs began to train scholars in American literature. [5]

Among the presidents were Willard Thorp (1952}, Merton Sealts (1953), Harrison Hayford (1955, 1970), (1992), (1999), Richard H. Fogle, (1961), Henry A. Murray (1966) (1980), Walter Bezanson (1967) (1989), Leon Howard (1971), Robert Penn Warren (1974), Jay Leyda (1976) (1987), Lewis Mumford (1977), G. Thomas Tanselle (1982), Hershel Parker (1991), H. Bruce Franklin (1993), Andrew Delbanco (2007) [6]


The Society overcame initial skepticism from some. Hilway's editorial in the 1947 Melville Society Newsletter disagreed with the many critics who "were willing to believe that the so-called Melville boom represented a temporary and esoteric enthusiasm for a fifth-rate literary figure...." He said that to the contrary,the Society can reassure itself of its part in "virile and outreaching growth of Melville scholarship". [5] .[3][4]

References
  • Spark, Clare L. (2006). Hunting Captain Ahab : Psychological Warfare and the Melville Revival. Kent, Ohio: Kent State Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-87338-888-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Notes
  1. Sanford Marovits, “The Melville Revival” in Wyn Kelley, ed., A Companion to Herman Melville (Wiley, 2015) p. 525
  2. "Leviathan". Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
  3. "The Melville Society". Hofstra. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
  4. "Melville Society Cultural Project". New Bedford Whaling Museum. Archived from the original on 16 March 2012. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
  5. Spark (2006), p. 352.
  6. Melville Society Listing of Society Officers
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