Project Gutenberg #15
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
Herman Melville
1851Melville's seafaring epic, prepared chapter by chapter from Project Gutenberg HTML.
Project Gutenberg #15 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
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AI Summary
Chapter 1 — ETYMOLOGY. Central question What sort of book is this going to be? Main argument The prefatory etymology frames the whale as a word, a cultural object, and a problem of naming before it becomes a plot...
“While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue, leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh up the signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true.”
Hackluyt.
“WHALE. * * * Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal is named from roundness or rolling; for in Dan. hvalt is arched or vaulted.”
Webster’s Dictionary.
“WHALE. * * * It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger. Wallen; A.S. Walw-ian, to roll, to wallow.”
Richardson’s Dictionary.
חו, Hebrew. ϰητος, Greek. CETUS, Latin. WHŒL, Anglo-Saxon. HVALT, Danish. WAL, Dutch. HWAL, Swedish. HVALUR, Icelandic. WHALE, English. BALEINE, French. BALLENA, Spanish. PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, Fegee. PEHEE-NUEE-NUEE, Erromangoan.