Talk:Isle of the Cross

Novels: 19th century Stub‑class Low‑importance

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Weakness of this article

This article should be deleted, as it only consists of speculation. There is no evidence that Melville ever wrote a whole novel and destroyed the manuscript without having it published. And what it says about Bartleby is unconvincing as well.MackyBeth (talk) 16:14, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

this Google books search found 3800 hits for '"Isle of the Cross" Melville'. However, the article could use better referencing. RJFJR (talk) 17:25, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that Google link. If you take the trouble to just read the first five or so results, you will find out that its existence is controversial among scholars. Result nr. 3 is Elizabeth Schultz pointing out that there is "only tentative evidence" that it existed, and result nr. 4 is the signalling that scholar Robert Milder did not include The Isle of the Cross in his book.MackyBeth (talk) 17:49, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As long as it is well sourced speculation, it might be ok for an article anyway. Hershel Parker (source for first sentence) seems to be a notable opinion on the subject, but I have no idea how accepted his view is. Is he the only one who thinks this? Are there scholars that argue against him? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:57, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Herman Melville bibliography source Isle of the Cross to: Robert S. Levine, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville. Cambridge, England and New York City: Cambridge University Press (1998), xviii. ISBN 0-521-55571-X. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:05, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And THAT source (thank you Google books) says that "Evidence suggests that he completes a book manuscript, The Isle of the Cross, which the Harpers choose not to publish." It seems WP is overstating its sources on this book. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:18, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed the point is that there is no general acceptance among Melville scholars that the title refers to a book. Otherwise you would find plenty of references to the title that do not lead to the same scholar.MackyBeth (talk) 13:55, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Citation from Norsworthy

I added a sentence from Norsworthy and in note 11 that sentence is attributed to the link in note 10. So I don't get why the word [who?] is added to my sentence, for I thought the source is clear enough.MackyBeth (talk) 17:20, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]