Zachary Turpin

Melville, Mathematics, and Platonic Idealism

Throughout his writings, Melville expresses an abiding amateur interest in the foundations of mathematics. In this article, I analyze his mathematical conceits and meta-mathematical discussions, relating them to his metaphysics. Having received a solid early education in math, Melville often alludes to mathematics in his writings, at first for its philosophical connections to Platonic idealism, and later as an illustration of relativism and epistemological frustration. Yet, even after his philosophical disillusionment, subtleties in Melville’s mathematical conceits reveal his lingering connection to Platonism. Ultimately, Melville’s attention to math helps clarify his relationship to art, science, and philosophy, while aptly anticipating a period of upheaval in late nineteenth-century mathematics.

The Knickerbocker and "Isle of the Cross"

Melville scholar Russell Patrick Gollard has argued that “Isle of the Cross,” the final working title of Melville’s lost manuscript (1854), may originate in a line from Camões’s epic poem, The Lusiad. I suggest another possible source for the title: “Isle Santa Cruz” (1837), an anonymous poem published in a Hawthorne-heavy issue of the Knickerbocker magazine. The poem contains the phrase “Isle of the Cross” (an oddly rare instance in pre-1854 literature), geographic ties to Melville’s travels in the Galápagos, and thematic connections to his late-life maritime poetry. Additionally, I discuss the poem’s thematic similarities to what is known of the “Isle of the Cross” manuscript itself, similarities which align with both Hershel Parker’s and Basem L. Ra’ad’s interpretations of the presumed content and eventual fate of the “story of Agatha.”