Bartleby, the Scrivener
When a New York lawyer needs to take on another copyist, it is Bartleby who responds to his advertisement, and arrives "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn." At first a diligent employee, he soon begins to refuse work, saying only "I would prefer not to." So begins the story of...
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When a New York lawyer needs to take on another copyist, it is Bartleby who responds to his advertisement, and arrives "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn." At first a diligent employee, he soon begins to refuse work, saying only "I would prefer not to." So begins the story of Bartleby—passive to the point of absurdity yet paradoxically extremely disruptive—which rapidly turns from farce to inexplicable tragedy. Accompanying Bartleby, Benito Cereno was first serialized in 1855, and centers around a slave rebellion on board a Spanish merchant ship in 1799.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9781843911562 (1843911566)
Publish date: October 28th 2007
Publisher: Hesperus Press
Pages no: 184
Edition language: English
Category:
Classics,
Academic,
School,
Literature,
Read For School,
American,
Classic Literature,
Literary Fiction,
19th Century,
Short Stories,
Fiction
I read "Bartleby the Scrivener" as I was told it was a good introduction to Herman Melville because it was short, accessible and showed how ahead of his time Melville was. All of those things turned out to be true but especially the last. "Bartleby The Scrivener" was published in 1853, the same ...
No one told me it was a comedy, or I might have read it sooner. It was very easy to imagine the story illustrated by Edward Gorey.Actually, Veronica told me that Melville wrote this as his response to everyone asking him to write a sequel to Moby Dick. Going into it with the idea of Cartman saying "...
“I would prefer not to.” I’ve seen this phrase all over the bookish internet: on totes, mugs, t-shirts. Bartleby’s refrain always struck me as petulant. It reminds me of a kid whose parents have just asked them to do their chores. I would prefer not to do the dishes. The response to this usually som...
I feel guilty not giving this a five. I recently used Bartleby as a write-in candidate in a poll for U.S. president, based strictly on his reputation of saying "I prefer not to..." I prefer not to tell you one spurious claim about Bartleby's "problem", this time on Wikipedia, since the theory mixes ...
Loved this one. I was surprised by how funny Melville could be, which Moby Dick's slight touches of the ironic (church sermon, etc.) wouldn't really suggest. I would like to re-read this with more focus on the narrator: why does he allow Bartleby to stick around so long? Does his reluctance betray a...
9 years ago
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