PARTISAN REVIEW
Yet
Billy Budd
is
a brilliant piece of writing, nicely constructed
and balanced between swift, stark action and moral-philosophical
comment. Though it falls sadly short of the pure tragedy Melville
apparently wanted to write, it
is
still a moving drama,
if
a drama
only of pathos. And though the portrait of Billy Budd is unaccep–
table, the other main characters bear the stamp of the author's great
intellectual powers as few of his characters do.
As
in
Israel Potter,
the scene is the revolutionary days of the
late eighteenth century, a period whose still "undetermined momen–
tousness" Melville thought unsurpassed in the whole range of his–
tory. This period seemed to Melville to be America's primeval time,
when its first great acts were performed and its best hopes discovered.
But the spirit of heroism and liberation could be felt in other na–
tions too, and Billy Budd, though he might as easily have been an
American, is in fact an Englishman. He is a youth of twenty-one.
His physical strength and beauty no less than his frank simplicity
and good will make him a favorite aboard the merchant ship "Rights–
of-Man," where we first discover him. Homeward bound near Eng–
land, the "Rights-of-Man" is stopped by the outward-bound frigate
H.M.S. "Indomitable." The frigate is shorthanded, and Billy Budd
is impressed aboard and given a post in the foretop. He easily gains
the affection and respect of the men and officers- with one excep–
tion. The exception is Claggart, the wonderfully conceived and de–
picted master-at-arms. For no easily determined reason Claggart
is down on Billy Budd, as an oracular old sailor suggests when Billy
comes to him for counsel. With an inhuman cunning Claggart sets
his trap for Billy Budd, contriving in various ways to cast suspicion
on him. The story takes place shortly after the British Navy has
been badly shaken by unprecedented waves of mutiny in the ranks.
And so Claggart's best strategy is to involve Billy Budd in a charge
of insurrection. He goes to the quarterdeck and tells Captain Vere
that Budd
is
plotting mutiny. The captain, though more suspicious
of Claggart than of the accused man, calls them both to his cabin.
There Claggart, looking deeply and unflinchingly into Billy Budd's
eyes with a kind of savage sharklike hunger and hatred, repeats his
charge. Billy Budd has always been handicapped by a stammer
which overcomes his power of speech in moments of excitement.
He is unable to answer the charge, even though the captain bene-
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