The Two Brothers
The consistent theme running throughout these poems is the author's devotion to Art. The title poem "Timoleon", for example, has an autobiographical strain. It depicts a character (based on the historical Timoleon) who is unappreciated and exiled until war brings him to fight for his people. After securing victory, he refuses to return home. Melville at the time similarly saw himself as an unappreciated would-be savior of literature. The historical story was adapted from Plutarch with elements of Honoré de Balzac's "The Two Brothers", in which a mother favors one brother over another, just as Melville saw himself in competition with his brother Gansevoort Melville.