What is the author's style in Billy Budd by Herman Melville?

Melville's style tends to allude to the grandeur of the Bible. The language is not subtle rather than elaborate and used the garner emotion from the reader. Check out this quote when Billy was hanged:

At the same moment it chanced that the vapory fleece hanging low in the East was shot through with a soft glory as of the fleece of the Lamb of God seen in mystical vision, and simultaneously therewith, watched by the wedged mass of upturned faces, Billy ascended; and, ascending, took the full rose of dawn.