Cetology of Moby-Dick

Cetology Of Moby-Dick

The cetology of Moby-Dick is the zoological classification and study of the properties of whales (i.e. cetology) introduced by United States author Herman Melville in his 1851 novel Moby-Dick. Although the novel is a work of fiction, Melville included sequences of chapters concerned largely with an objective discussion of the properties of whales. The observations, voiced through the narrator Ishmael, were largely drawn from Melville's own first-hand experiences in whaling in the 1840s and include observations of various species from the order of Cetacea. The chapters in which Melville discusses whales in a scientific manner, though connected with the story of Captain Ahab and the Pequod, are often omitted in abridged versions of the novel.