Alfred Kazin’s Clarel: Marginalia and Implications

Alfred Kazin plays an important role in American literary history, and his interest in Melville and Clarel is significant. The marginalia in his personal copy of Clarel reveal how he planned his final published essay on Clarel, “Melville in the Holy Land.” Kazin used the reprint of the Hendricks House edition with Walter Bezanson’s commentary. Although some critics considered Melville’s poetry archaic and anachronistic, while praising his fiction as a precursor of postmodernism, a critical reevaluation has occurred. Contemporary poets and critics respect Melville’s most ambitious foray into poetry and find it meaningful. Kazin was conflicted about Clarel’s poetic technique but found that the poem’s content expresses issues that are both profound and uniquely American. Kazin reflected on the ironies of Clarel and Melville’s observations and state of mind.