SOURCE: " 'Bartleby': Art and Social Commitment," in Philological Quarterly, Vol. XLIII, No. 1, January, 1964, pp. 87-98.

Gardner was an American novelist, educator, and critic with a special interest in medieval literature. As a critic, he championed the moral function of literature. In the following essay, he analyzes the relationship of the individual to society as portrayed in "Bartleby, the Scrivener."

In "Bartleby," man looks at man, artist looks at artist, and God looks at God. To understand that the narrator is at least as right as Bartleby, both on the surface and on symbolic levels, is to understand the remarkable interpenétration of form and content in the story. Most Melville readers have noticed that on one level, Bartleby can represent the honest artist: he is a "scrivener" who refuses to "copy," as Melville himself refused to copy—that is, as he refused to knock out more saleable South...