2026 Undergraduate Research Showcase

"Barely Intelligible": Contextualizing Melville's Short Fiction

Document Type

Student Presentation

Presentation Date

4-24-2026

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Tara Penry

Abstract

Herman Melville is best known for his novels, but his short stories illustrate a key moment in the development of the 19th century American short story. This project will bring attention to these short fictions and contextualize them within Melville’s life, other writings, critical reception, influences, and his contemporaries in short fiction. This will ultimately demonstrate Melville’s significance as an early intermediary in the transition from realism to Modernism.

Special attention will be paid to the evolution of the critical response to Melville’s work, both in his time and ours, as only very recently has the academic value of the majority of his short fiction been closely considered. This project will analyze the stories that have been historically well regarded, such as “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and “Benito Cereno,” while comparing themes of the minor works of short fiction that have been historically overlooked. This project will closely examine Melville’s use of both realism and Dark Romanticism as well as allegory, irony, allusion, and humor in relation to short story convention at the time.

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