Melville's Billy Budd: 'A Sort of Upright Barbarian"

Abstract

Confronted with the wealth of criticism surrounding Billy Budd, one feels somewhat reluctant to attempt yet another consideration of the work. Certainly it would appear that the "acceptance-versus-resistance" battle has been pursued as far as it would go, and attempts to reconcile the two have moreover been made by various critics. It seems, however, that the heat of the battle over the novel's central question has clouded other crucial statements Melville seems to be making. It is thus in the hope of shedding light on some of these issues that I offer one more reading of this controversial work. While I do not propose to examine previous criticism, some frequent conclusions of the proponents of the "acceptance" theory seem somewhat surprising and beg to be questioned.