Moby Dick is at the heart of the Romantic literary tradition in which the imagination of the individual genius is measured against the incredible force and majesty of nature. This tradition can be gentle and harmonious, as when a poet studies the patterns and cycles of the natural world and finds those patterns and cycles preexisting in themself. It can also evoke fury and horror, as when the modern human seeks to impose themself upon nature, taming it conform to ether their practical or emotional needs.

A French idiom to describe a difficult passion or pointless pursuit a “bête noire,” or black beast. Thanks to the influence of Melville, in English we invert the phrase cliché, calling such passion a “white whale.” As with all cliché, this usage obscures the more difficult and specific meaning of Melville’s text. Nature, with its implacable but unpredictable laws, will destroy the individual soul that matches itself to it, even as it inevitably erodes the individual body. The white whale is not a problem to be solved; it is a fact with which one comes to terms, or else dies a death in spirit.