There is something very interesting about the Melville reading we have done this week. There, he seeks to understand the "nameless horror." To do so, he asks concrete questions, answers them, gives examples, and develops their meaning. In other words, he is carrying out a type of inquiry. Why is this interesting? Because if we generalize, we arrive at the conception of literature as inquiry. Literature as inquiry. But what does literature inquire into exactly? And how does it do so? And furthermore, what does it find?
Melville uses the phrase "man's soul." To make this non-sexist lets use "human soul." (The next question is to ask whether animals have souls.) Is this what literature inquires into then? Can it reach truths that none of our sciences are capable or reaching? What do we learn of our souls from it?
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