Herman Melville, Billy Budd

Since I’m talking Melville, let me also recommend another one of his sea stories. Well, let me recommend them all, at that, from Typee onward. But his last one, Billy Budd, left unfinished at his death, was published about a century back in 1924 & has inspired artists now & again. Thomas Mann & D.H. Lawrence both praised its beauty. English critics made it a cause celebre, I almost want to say, at the time when Melville’s reputation was being established (as a modernist). But to be brief: Billy Budd is a noble young man impressed into service on HMS Bellipotent, during the Napoleonic Wars, Captain Edward Vere—he runs afoul of the wicked master-at-arms Claggart who accuses him of mutiny to destroy him. Terrible suffering follows.

In 1951, a play & an opera came out on the two sides of the Atlantic. The Broadway play, a critical success (i.e. it lost money but had some good reviews & critical awards), was written by the poet Louis Coxe & playwright Robert Chapman (taught English at Harvard).

The opera was written by Benjamin Britten from a libretto by the famous novelist E.M Forester.

Then in 1962, the English actor Peter Ustinov made a film of it—he directed, produced, & played the Captain. His star, the young Terence Stamp, in his debut, got an Oscar nomination. The villain was played by one of the great villains going back to the noir era, Robert Ryan. In fact, fans of Old Hollywood stars will find Melvyn Douglas in it, too! The movie was quite a hit…