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Herman Melville
Moby Dick
Website Evaluators
Patricia Edmondson - Shelton High School, Washington
Ann Gann - Clinton High School, Tennessee
Joanne F. Karr - Hollywood High School, California
Denise May Levenick - Mayfield Senior School, California
Website Reviewer and Compiler
Gail Lindenberg - Nogales High School, California
Site Ratings
1 = Poor 2 = Fair 3 = Good 4 = Excellent
Herman Melville
http://www.melville.org
This site is professional and polished. It begins with a great picture of Herman Melville and a clear outline of the offerings to navigate. Unique features include: Current Melville Events, Biographies
of Melville and Hawthorne, Quotes by and about Melville, Excerpts and Electronic Texts, Publishing History, Criticism, and other Melville-Related Sites on the Web. There are links to Whales, Sailing, Literature,
and the people and sources behind these pages. The Works link offers connection to the online text, criticisms, and plot summaries of the plot chapters. This link could be very useful to the classroom
teacher and is still a work in progress. The postscript link is an interesting page that is thematic in its design to extend learning and assist in developing a historical context for reading. This site is
objective, reflective, and very interesting. Students can go on an internet field trip and visit a whaling museum as part of the context building for reading Moby Dick.
Overall Rating: 3
Enjoying Moby Dick by Herman Melville
http://www.pathguy.com/mobydick.htm
Ed Friedlander, M.D.offers a "non-expert's"
opinion on Moby Dick. Dr. Freidlander graduated with a degree in literature from Brown University. His clear, concise presentation invites the student to tackle this "difficult book" because the
adventure will be worthwhile. His focus is primarily on the themes to be found in the novel. This essay is engaging and piques curiosity about the book. The outstanding feature of this site is the list of
links related to the novel. Teachers and students can find six different on-line texts, synopses, class notes, lesson plans, vocabulary and interesting connections to biography and history. In addition to
the mass of information on Melville's Moby Dick, Dr. Freidlander offers links to four more novels that he has "studied" and prepared for the Internet. There is a wealth of information on Moby Dick and
Melville, as well as lesson plans for teachers. Some links discuss homosexuality, cannibalism, and ejaculation and might not be appropriate for young students. This site is for the serious student and
is easy to navigate. Teachers will be glad to note that Dr. Friedlander suggests ideas for papers, but does not give enough commentary to form the bulk of a composition. This is a very interesting and
thought-provoking site written by a pathologist who loves books. The site also includes links to Dr. Freidlander's other interests, including Christianity, adventure gaming, skydiving, and "the autopsy."
Overall Rating: 4
Ishmael's New Testament: Salvation in Moby Dick
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jbair/mobydick.htm
This page presents an academic paper by James Bair that proposes to "summarize what the Bible says on the subject [of salvation] which
applies to Moby Dick." Links to footnotes and Biblical references make this site easier to use than many other similar on-line papers. It is essentially a text-only page, and instructors might want to be
aware of the site and topic in the event of suspected plagiarism. The page is part of a website titled Jim & Janet's Electronic Eclectic: An eclectic literature resource on the Internet. Further
information about the authors was unavailable, although the site also listed other literary essays and links to information about citing internet sources. . The historical background is interesting. No
notation of the writer's credentials is offered. Bair covers 20 reference points between the Bible and Moby Dick. His topics range from "Sin: Separation from God and Man's Nature," and " God's
Hiding or Man's Separation?" to "Ishmael and the New Birth." Each topic has links to the referenced scripture and quotes from the novel. There is some discussion on each topic. The
writing is clear and concise, yet those who are not familiar with the Bible may have some difficulty with the allusions. With the lengthy bibliography provided, this would be a great source for a research
paper.
Overall Rating: 3
How to teach Melville
http://www.hmco.com/college/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/melville.html
This site contains a rather scholarly description of how to teach
Melville in general and several works specifically, such as Bartleby and Billy Budd. Included are discussion questions, a brief bibliography and links to similar syllabi on quite a few other authors. The
material is on a very high level, and thus is most appropriate for A.P. students or college teachers. There is little for the student here with no images or graphics to draw the eye.
Overall Rating: 3
Moby Dick Paintings
http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/MT/95/Dec95/mta18d95.html
This page publishes an article entitled "Not All Paintings of Moby Dick Look
Like a Mighty Whale" by James M. Manheim from the Michigan Today newsletter of the University of Michigan. In this article, Manheim reviews a lecture given by alumna Elizabeth Schultz (Ph.D. '67) on "several
painterly treatments of Melville's Moby Dick." Schultz, a professor of art history at the University of Kansas, introduced the UM Museum of Art exhibit "Unpainted to the Last": Moby-Dick and American Art,
1930-1990. Manheim reviews the principle points of Shultz's lecture and presents representative examples of artwork from the exhibition. Scholars interested in artwork inspired by Moby Dick may find the
article useful and stimulating. As part of the Michigan Today website, the graphics are attractive and the overall design clean and easy to navigate. Further resources or links are not available from this
site. Briefly presented are Dr. Schultz's six general modes in which artists have responded to the novel---narrative, abstract, political, feminist, contemporary and icon questioning. The five
pictures are diverse in their depiction of characters and symbols from the novel. There is a link to the UM Museum. This site would be most useful for teachers who focus on art or the Humanities.
Overall Rating: 2
Melville Biographies
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/melville.htm
This website contains traditional biographies
only. They are very well written, concise, formatted well, and include a reading list for more information. Within each biography are links to the biographies of other authors who were contemporaries of
Herman Melville with a personal history of his relationships with other writers. Among notable authors listed are: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. This
site would make an excellent starting point for instructional purposes, though the website is limited in scope. The site is well constructed, easy to navigate, and is very well written. There is little depth
beyond basic encyclopedic information and no lessons or other resources are offered.
Overall Rating: 2
Great Books Index
http://books.mirror.org/gb.melville.html
This site links to e-text of a number of Melville's works including Moby Dick, Billy Budd, Bartleby the Scrivener, Typee, Paradise of Bachelors, Benito Cereno, I and
my Chimney, and Confidence Man. These would be useful if a printout of text or excerpts were needed. There are no other resources or images provided. Texts do load very quickly but it is not very effective for
instructional purposes. It would be more valuable as a link as part of a more comprehensive website, but certainly offers students easy access to a number of Melville's works.
Overall Rating: 2
The Herpetology of Herman Melville's Moby Dick
http://herpetology.com/2phs30.html
This web page presents an article on Melville's use of
references to reptiles and amphibians in Moby Dick first published in the Bulletin of the Philadelphia Herpetological Society, Vol. 30, 1982 [ISSN 0553-9587] by Hobart M. Smith and Rozella B. Smith, Department of
Environmental, Population and Organismic Biology University of Colorado The authors systematically discuss each of Melville's 12 herpetological references. The article does not focus on literary analysis of the
references, but aims to discuss Melville's familiarity with reptiles and amphibians, and usage in his novel. The page is designed as a straightforward academic site, with text only. As such, it is minimally useful
for secondary students or teachers; although it would be helpful for anyone working on research on the specific topic. The page links to selections from the novel which are presumably cross-referenced to citations in
the discussion, but these are cumbersome to follow without hyperlinks within the text. Certainly a unique offering as a way to look at literature, the site might be useful to a budding biologist.
Overall Rating: 2 |
