China and the West

Ferrantello, Donna. 'The symphony' in 'Moby-Dick' : the Chinese eye in Melville's Storm : the influence of the China trade, oriental thought and universalism on Melville's romanticism.
This dissertation is an exploration of the influence of the China trade, Oriental thought and Universalism on Melville's Romanticism, focusing on his novel Moby-Dick. The thesis that Melville writes in a genre of literary religion similar to Transcendentalists is argued on the basis of his use of a meditation process to realize an intuitional epistemology and achieve a harmony of polarities. I characterize his epistemology as related to a hidden Oriental 'geist'.
Chapter One explores the influence of the China trade, travel and texts during Melville's age. The China trade was a vehicle for economic exchange in early 19th century America. It was also a powerful source for transmitting knowledge about Oriental culture and thought. The general knowledge of Chinese culture and thought available to the reading of Melville and his contemporaries is discussed with specific attention to Melvilles interests and reading habits.
Chapter Two surveys the philosophical literature generated by Transcendentalists, British and German Romantics about the relation between mind and nature. I trace their involvement with polarities to influence from Oriental thought. This interest in a synthesis of polarities also included the unity of science and philosophy. Thus, it is argues that the work of Nature-philosophy writers Herder and Humboldt influenced the quasi-scientific interests of Melville expressed in Moby-Dick.
Chapter Three gives a brief analysis of symbol theories found in Emerson, Coleridge and Schelling. I demonstrate how Melville uses external symbols to convey states of consciousness. His use of a meditation process as a spiritual method for recognizing intuitive truth is evident in Melville's language about consciousness. The Oriental 'geist' is revealed in his use of the Universal Yellow Lotus symbol and in contrasting imagery of East and West, the Pacific and Atlantic waters, masculinity and femininity, activity and calm, and Ahab and Ishmael. "The Symphony" chapter provides the epistemological, ontological and cosmological center for the novel's meaning: the Chinese Tao of being. Finally, this enlightenment is related to a 'coming home' experience.
Chapter Five situates Melville's Universalist notions on brotherhood, unity of races and religions and the notion of a universal religion in relation to Unitarian Christianity and Transcendentalism, particularly the thought of Samuel Johnson. Both Melville and Johnson depict the sea as a symbol for universality. An embracing maternal spirit as the source of unity for all being and polarities is the nexus of Melville's symphony.