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Benito Cereno
Benito Cereno, story by Melville, published in The Piazza Tales (1856). Its source is a chapter in Amasa Delano's Voyages and Travels (1817). Robert Lowell adapted Melville's story in a one‐act verse play of the same title in The Old Glory (1965).
In 1799 Captain Delano puts in for water at an uninhabited island off Chile, where he encounters a Spanish merchantman in ruinous condition, commanded by Benito Cereno, a sensitive young Spaniard now gravely ill and enabled to pursue his duties only with the solicitous care of his black servant Babo. Cereno tells the American that he sailed from Buenos Aires for Lima, with a crew of 50 and a cargo including 300 Negroes owned by Alexandro Aranda. Off Cape Horn, he says, many of the crew were lost in a storm, and disease destroyed most of the other whites and blacks. Delano offers aid, but is uneasy at the insubordination of the slaves and the careless seamanship and seeming ingratitude of Cereno. He is about to return to his ship when Cereno jumps into his boat, precipitating an attack by the Negroes from which they barely escape. Cereno explains that the blacks had mutinied, led by Babo, and wanted to be carried to Africa. Delano seizes the slave ship, and takes it with his own to Lima, where Babo is executed. Cereno enters a monastery, but soon dies. |
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Cite this article
James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Benito Cereno." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Benito Cereno." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-BenitoCereno.html James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Benito Cereno." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-BenitoCereno.html |
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Amasa Delano
Amasa Delano , 1763–1823, American sea captain, b. Duxbury, Mass. He served in the American Revolution as a soldier at 15 and later as a privateersman. His experiences on the sea in the days of New England's supremacy are recorded in his Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, Comprising Three Voyages Round the World (1817).
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"Amasa Delano." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Amasa Delano." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-E-Delano-A.html "Amasa Delano." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-E-Delano-A.html |
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