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| {{Chronology Entry | | {{Chronology Entry |
| |Year=1845 | | |Year=1844 |
| |Year Suffix=c | | |Year Suffix= |
| |Year Number=26 | | |Year Number=18 |
| |Headline=Melville (Maybe) Describes New England Ball Game Poetically | | |Headline=Springtime Ballplaying on the Common -- by Girls |
| |Salience=3 | | |Salience=2 |
| |Tags=Ball in the Culture, | | |Tags=Females, |
| | |Location= |
| |Country=United States | | |Country=United States |
| |Coordinates=42.4072107, -71.3824374 | | |Coordinates=42.3600825, -71.0588801 |
| |State=MA | | |State=MA |
| |Game=Unnamed plugging game | | |City=Boston |
| | |Modern Address= |
| | |Game=Round Ball |
| |Immediacy of Report=Contemporary | | |Immediacy of Report=Contemporary |
| |Age of Players=Juvenile | | |Age of Players=Youth |
| |Text=<p><span> </span></p> | | |Holiday= |
| <p><span>And now hurrah! for the speeding ball</span><br /><span>Is flung in viewless air,</span><br /><span>And where it will strike in its rapid fall</span><br /><span>The boys are hastening there--</span><br /><span>And the parted lip and the eager eye</span><br /><span>Are following its descent,</span><br /><span>Whilst the baffl'd stumbler's falling cry</span><br /><span>With th'exulting shout is blent.</span><br /><span>The leader now of either band</span><br /><span>Picks cautiously his men,</span><br /><span>And the quickest foot and the roughest hand</span><br /><span>Are what he chooses then.</span><br /><span>And see!the ball with swift rebound,</span><br /><span>Flies from the swinging bat,</span><br /><span>While the player spurns the beaten ground,</span><br /><span>Nor heeds his wind-caught hat.</span><br /><span>But the ball is stopp'd in its quick career,</span><br /><span>And is sent with a well-aim'd fling,</span><br /><span>And he dodges to feel it whistling near,</span><br /><span>Or leaps at its sudden sting,</span><br /><span>Whilst the shot is hail'd with a hearty shout,</span><br /><span>As the wounded one stops short,</span><br /><span>For his 'side' by the luckless blow is out--</span><br /><span>And the others wait their sport.</span></p>
| | |Notables= |
| |Sources=<p><span>This poem, published </span><span>pseudonymously as the work of "William M. Christy" in 1845, is Melville's </span><span>first published work, according to Melville scholar <span>Jeanne C. Howes, author of a monograph entitled '"Poet of a </span><span>Morning: Herman Melville and the 'Redburn Poem': Redburn: Or the </span><span>Schoolmaster of a Morning". From 19cbb post by John Thorn, July 6, 2004</span></span></p> | | |Text=<p>"Girls of fourteen -- daughters of plebeians -- play round ball on the Common. It is a free exercise."</p> |
| |Warning=<p><span>"In the case of the Redburn </span><span>poem, a strong competing interpretation concludes that HM is not </span><span>its author. I can't argue either side of Howes' hypothesis since </span><span>I have not read her work, and I only have a couple hundred words </span><span>of notes on the topic, but I think we all readily understand that </span><span>the attribution of Melville as author of this four canto poem is </span><span>not universally accepted." 19cbb post by Stephen Hoy, July 6, 2004</span></p> | | |Sources=<p><em>Boston Post, </em>April 24, 1844, page 2, column 2.</p> |
| |Comment=<p>These lines appear to be part of the poem <em>Redburn: Or the Schoolmaster of a Morning</em>, published under an apparent pseudonym in 1845 (or 1844). In 2000, Jeanne C. Howes published <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Poet of a Morning: Herman Melville and the "Redburn" Poem.</span> </p> | | |Warning= |
| <p>The online blurb for this work states: "<span>In a tour de force of literary detection and scholarship, Jeanne Howes has conclusively proven that shortly after Herman Melville’s return from the South Pacific in 1844 an anonymous book published in Manhattan, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Redburn: or the Schoolmaster of a Morning</span>, is his first book. Early scholars pondered whether this book might have been written by Melville but dismissed it since not enough was then known about Melville’s life and writings. Serious scholarship did not begin until the 1920s, as Herman Melville, the great dark god of American letters had fallen into an obscurity so encompassing that at the time of his death in 1891 he was entirely forgotten by the literary community."</span></p>
| | |Comment=<p>By "plebeian," the writer presumably meant "not upper-class."</p> |
| <p><span>An annotation: "Possibly written about a game played by the schoolboys attending Sykes District School in Pittsfield where Melville, as an 18 year old taught for a short while before he went to sea." He shipped out in 1841.</span></p> | | |Query=<p> Did " It is a free exercise" mean roughly what it means today? </p> |
| <p><span> </span></p>
| | |Source Image= |
| |Query=<p>Further opinions about this poem's description of a baserunning game with plugging are welcome.</p> | | |External Number= |
| |Submitted by=John Thorn, Bob Tholkes, | | |Submitted by=David Block |
| |Submission Note=JT: 19CBB post 7/6/2004; RJT posting of 2/12/2015 | | |Submission Note=Email of 3/28/2020 |
| |Reviewed=Yes | | |Reviewed=Yes |
| |Has Supplemental Text=No | | |Has Supplemental Text=No |
| }} | | }} |
