A Literary Context of New Realism: Poetic and Symbolic Style in Herman Melville’s Novels Koh, Changsuk (Chodang Univ.) It is notable that Herman Melville's writing style contributes to enlarging the function of prose by making use of poetic and/or symbolic diction to represent a certain reality. This study aims at analyzing Melville's writing style and techniques toward new realistic authorship. It seems valuable enough to discuss the poetic effects through alliteration, repetitious calling, negative prefixes and suffixes, proverbs, allegories, symbols, and narrative shifts as well in his writings. Not only do those narrative techniques partly represent postmodern qualities, but work out for the writer's distinct 19th century American realism. Also, Melville's various narrative techniques have a considerable significance to some extent that produces a meaningful text related with multi-culturalism. I intend to demonstrate that Melville's fiction could suggest a counterpoint of reality by analyzing his narrative subject and object. In fact, his fiction is the record of self-conscious struggle to establish his ideal authorship while not making an appeal to readers' pleasurable reading but representing the ‘great art of telling the truth.' Therefore, it seems invaluable to again estimate how his writing could be a canon related with a new realism.