Recent Capture of White Whale Fails to Mar Melville's Meaning

The interpretation of Herman Melville's "Moby Dick," with all its symbolic levels, remains unchanged despite the fact that a white whale has been captured off the coast of Peru, two university professors stated yesterday.

Vladimir Nabokov, visiting lecturer on Slavic Languages and Literature, and Theodore Morrison, professor of English, both agreed that critics would not revert to a literal interpretation of the novel now that a French vessel has reported the capture of a real albino sperm whale.

"All this is just a reporter's story," Nabokov said. "It came to the paper after passing through several sources, none of whom was a naturalist."

Nabokov, who will teach Humanities 3 this term, continued. "The news article itself is also fiction, not fact. One type of fiction has been created by a reporter, and the other type has been created by Melville."

Nabokov said that it was always dangerous to try and relate real life and real faces to fiction, and that there was no connection with a real white whale and the one in the novel.

"The whale has been created by Melville, as the whale has been created by God or by genes. Facts should not interfere with interpretation--let's keep them separate."

"The story of Moby Dick will stand as the Castle Elsinore stands, unchanged--and with no relation to the building that tourists call Elsinore," he concluded.

Morrison did not think that the whale's capture was in any way spectacular.

"As far as I am aware," he said, "it is a biological truth that albinos appear in all animals--I don't know about the frequency in whales, but I'm sure there are some."

"I think that "Moby Dick" still remains unimpeached," he continued.

The whale was reported captured and killed by the French ship Anglo Norse. The crew took photographs of the beast to certify their catch, and according to the production manager of the whaling fleet of which the Anglo Norse was a member, this was the first albino sperm whale ever taken by man.