Page "Herman Melville" Paragraph 27

His poetry is not as highly critically esteemed as his fiction, although some critics place him as the first modernist poet in the United States ; others would assert that his work more strongly suggest what today would be a postmodern view.

A leading champion of Melville's claims as a great American poet was the poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren, who issued a selection of Melville's poetry prefaced by an admiring and acute critical essay.

According to Melville scholar Elizabeth Renker " a sea change in the reception of the poems is incipient.

" In reference to the poem Clarel, poetry critic Helen Vendler remarked: " What it cost Melville to write this poem makes us pause, reading it.

Alone, it is enough to win him, as a poet, what he called ' the belated funeral flower of fame '".