When he dedicated Israel Potter to the Bunker Hill Monument, Herman Melville gestured to an eminent national memorial which took so long to build that it appeared to be in ruins before it was finished. Melville's novel addresses the temporal quirks of both patriotic communal commemoration and posthumous personal recognition.

Issue Section:
Articles
This content is only available as a PDF.
© 2016 by The New England Quarterly
2016
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
You do not currently have access to this content.