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PARTISAN REVIEW
to justify our calling the author an artist. At the present stage of
Melville criticism that is the important fact. Certainly it
is
wrong to
discuss Melville as a great progressive, an heroic democrat, a culture
hero, a noble heart, or a prophet of the good society apart from
Melville as an artist- as so many liberal or progressive critics have
been content to do. To do this is to make Melville a lesser man than
he was, and to repeat the old heresy about art not being connected
with life and morals.
Melville's moral intelligence must not be underestimated either.
It is wrong to allow our liberal political scruples to keep us from
fully understanding Melville's idea of the Heroic American.
Is
this
Heroic American "undemocratic"? Perhaps and perhaps not. The
important point is that Melville does not discount the resources of
personality. Melville's Promethean Hero is no vaporous or irrespon–
sible extravagance of the Romantic Age. He is elementary psychology
for American moralists.
