Published in a collection of Melville’s titled John Marr and Other Sailors, “The Berg” is a poem often considered literally in light of the writer’s longstanding attraction to the sea as a subject. Melville has always been perhaps America’s most misunderstood and underappreciated author. His focus on settings related to sea often confines him to the cage of a genre writer. One might think that a novel laden with symbolism like Moby-Dick would encourage readers to step outside the boundaries of the literal to explore more substantial meaning and yet the description of a man-made ship crashing into an immoveable object like an iceberg has led to an endless repeating litany of explication in which “The Berg” reveals the hubris of man in trying to control the forces of Nature.
The ship is described as “infatuate” as it crashes into the iceberg “directed as by madness.” The word “infatuate” is better known today through its form “infatuation” but its Latin root meaning carries the connotation of being made a fool of by irrationally pursuing something or someone due to a sudden passion defying all logic. Or put another way: as if directed by madness.
Part of the reason that the “The Berg” is often interpreted literally is that the overwhelming bulk of the verse is given to literal descriptions of the block of ice. The poem most definitely wants to create in the mind of the reader the image of one of the powerful forces in the natural world and especially in the sea. And yet, the poem is not really about the iceberg, but about a man describing a dream in which a ship—knowing full well the power represented by the iceberg—seems to purposefully drive itself full steam into that object.
From a literal standpoint, the poem makes little sense. For one thing, why would any ship drive itself into an iceberg on purpose? Secondly, why is the narrator describing this from a point of view inconsistent with reality? He is not on the ship and he gives no indication of being on another ship. Certainly, he is not perched atop a neighboring iceberg. He is describing this from a dream and dreams are rarely intended to be taken literally.
The clearest indication that the poem is not only not about a ship and iceberg but not really even about a man-made object going up against the forces of nature is that description of the ship. Infatuate and driven by madness. Melville was too deep and complex a writer to have intended the meaning of a poem about such a simple narrative event being limited to the simplicity of that event. Especially in light of the fact that by the time he wrote “The Berg” his dreams of making a living as a novelist or short story writer had taken on the connotation of an infatuate dream driven by madness.
The iceberg is no mere iceberg. The iceberg is any solid obstruction that sinks a passionate dream, aspiration, hope, desire or plan. “The Berg” can be found far away from the water and need not be made of ice.
