Bridegroom-Dick
The title character in a poem of the same name from the collection John Marr and Other Sailors is an old seaman telling old tales about his life aboard ships ranging from the Mexican War to Battle of Mobile Bay with Admiral Farragut during the Civil War.
John Brown
John Brown’s body is swinging from the gallows on which he was hanged in the poem “The Portent” in the collection Battle-Pieces. Brown’s dead body casts a literal shadow over the green Shenandoah plains of Virginia, but in Melville’s hands he cast a much longer shadow as a symbolic meteor portending doom for Virginia and other slave-owning states.
The Maldive Shark and the Pilot Fish
The shark gets the honor of being the title character, but if anything he is secondary to the role of the pilot fish who swim alongside and seek shelter from predators inside his mouth. This symbiotic relationship is robust with symbolic meaning allowing for multiple interpretation.
Santa Claus
Santa Claus is perhaps the most unlikely character to pop up in a poem by Herman Melville, but he makes an appearance by name in “Stockings in the Farm-House Chimney.” This poem is joyous celebration of Christmas in the form of a hope by Melville that his children do not quite believe in the metaphorical cousin of Oberon, King of the Fairies.
General James Birdseye McPherson
As part of his collection of poems all related to the Civil War in Battle-Pieces, Melville composed a dirge for the highest ranking Union officer killed during the war. General James McPherson was shot while atop his horse outside Atlanta in July 1864.
Falstaff
Shakespeare’s greatest comic character appears in a poem never published during Melville’s lifetime titled “Falstaff’s Lament Over Prince Hal Become Henry V.” That Melville was part of the universe of those who hold Falstaff in a cherished place in their love of literature can be easily gleaned from the references to him throughout as “Fat Jack” the “King of Good Fellows” and “honest Jack” who is unwisely loyal to Hal right up to the end.
Timoleon
The character which gives his name to not just a poem, but the entire collection in which it is featured is the brother of Timophanes, a merciless ruler of Corinth. As things get out of hand, Timoleon agrees to a conspiracy to end his reign through assassination, an act which ironically wins him only the displeasure and disapproval of his mother and the citizens. The bulk of the poem is directed toward his self-contemplation during the two decades which follow his exile.
