The Rhetoric of Solecisms

Melville’s linguistic style is well known for its ungrammatical, or solecistic, sentences, which have long been attributed to his lack of education or inadvertent oversights. Against this conventional view, John Bryant (2001) and Michael S. Kearns (1983) regard grammatical errors in Melville’s full-length novels as rhetorical devices, which urges a broader reconsideration of solecisms in Melville’s short pieces. The metrical aspect of his short story “The Piazza” suggests the author’s acute awareness of rhetorical usage in the story’s construction, and so if solecism is to be regarded as a consciously rhetorical feature of Melville’s style, then his deployment of the device in the story may be taken as evidence of its broader use in his short pieces as well as novels. This article focuses on solecisms in Melville’s “The Piazza,” and argues that their usage is intentional and rhetorical.