"America is now wholly
given over to a d****d mob of scribbling women, and I should have no
chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their
trash--and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed. What is the
mystery of these innumberable editions of The Lamplighter (by
Maria Susanna Cummins), and other books neither better nor worse?
Worse they could not be, and better they need not be, when they sell
by the hundred thousand." - Hawthorne's 1855 letter to his publisher
William D. Ticknor, quoted in Pattee, Fred L. The Feminine
Fifties. NY: Appleton-Century Co., 1940. p. 110.
Twice-Told
Tales, 1837; Mosses from an Old Manse, 1846; The
Scarlet Letter, 1850; The House of Seven Gables , 1851;
The Blithedale Romance, 1852; The Life of Franklin
Pierce, 1852; The Marble Faun , 1860; The Centenary
Edition of the Works of Hawthorne, 18 vols. ed. W. Charvat et
al., 1962-1987.
Gartner, Matthew. "Hawthorne
and the Fictions of Family History." Nathaniel Hawthorne
review 22.2 (Fall 1996): 60-80.
Roger, Patricia M. "Taking a
Perspective: Hawthorne's Concept of Language and Nineteenth-Century
Language Theory." Nineteenth-century literature 51.4 (Mar
1997): 433-455.
Baym, Nina. The Scarlet
Letter: A Reading. Boston: Twayne, 1986. PS1868 .B39
Bercovitch, Sacvan. The
office of the Scarlet letter. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1991.
PS1868 .B395
Bradley, Sculley. ed. The
scarlet letter / Nathaniel Hawthorne ; an authoritative text,
backgrounds and sources, criticism. NY: Norton, 1978. PS1868 .A1
(includes the following articles):
Baughman, Ernest W.
"Public Confession and The Scarlet Letter." New England
Q. 40 (1967): 532-50.
Boewe, Charles &
Murray G. Murphey. "Hester Prynne in History." American
Literature 32 (May 1960): 202-204.
Carpenter, Frederick I.
"Scarlet A Minus." College English 5 (1944): 173-80.
Gerber, John C. "Form and
Content in The Scarlet Letter." New England Q. 17
(1944): 25-55.
Gross, Seymour.
"`Solitude, and Love, and Anguish': The Tragic Design of The
Scarlet Letter." CLA Journal 3 (Mar. 1968):
154-65.
Levy, Leo B. "The
Landscape Modes of The Scarlet Letter"
Nineteenth Century Fiction 23 (1969): 377-92.
Ryskamp, Charles. "The
New England Sources of The Scarlet Letter." American
Literature 31 (Nov. 1959): 257-272.
Sandeen, Ernest. "The
Scarlet Letteras a Love Story." PMLA 77 (1962):
425-435.
Gerber, John C. ed.
Twentieth-Century Interpretations of The Scarlet Letter.
Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968. PS1868 .G38
- - -, ed. A Scarlet
Letter Handbook. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1960. PS1868 .G38
Gross, Seymour L. ed. A
scarlet letter handbook. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1960.
PS1868 .G7
- - -. The scarlet
letter: an authoritative text, essays in criticism and
scholarship. NY: Norton, 1988. PS1868 .A2 G76
Kesterson, David B.
Critical essays on Hawthorne's The scarlet letter. Boston:
G.K. Hall, 1988. PS1868 .C75
Larson, Charles R. Arthur
Dimmesdale. NY: A & W. Publishers, 1983. PS3562 .A752
A88
Turner, Arlin. The
Merrill studies in The scarlet letter. Columbus, Ohio: C. E.
Merrill, 1970. PS1868 .T8
Bensick, Carol M.
"Dimmesdale and His Bachelorhood: `priestly celibacy' in The
Scarlet Letter." Studies in American Fiction 21.1 (Sprg
1993): 103(8).
Bercovitch, Sacvan. "The
Scarlet Letter: A Twice-Told Tale." Nathaniel Hawthorne review
22.2 (Fall 1996): 1-21.
Bronstein, Zelda. "The
Parabolic Ploys of The Scarlet Letter." American Q.
39.2 (Sum. 1987): 193-210.
Crews, Frederick C. "The
Ruined Wall: Unconscious Motivation in The Scarlet Letter."
New England Q. 38 (Sep. 1965): 312:330.
Daniel, Clay. "The
Scarlet Letter: Hawthorne, Freud and theTranscendentalists."
American TranscendentalQ. 61 (Oct. 1986):
23-36.
Derrick, Scott S. "'A
curious subject of observation and inquiry': homoeroticism, the body,
and authorship in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter."
Novel 28.3 (Sprg 1995): 308 (19).
Dunne, Michael. "The
Scarlet Letter on Film: Ninety Years of Revisioning."
Literature film quarterly 25.1 (1997): 30-40.
Flores, Ralph. "Ungrounding
Allegory: The Dead-Living Letter in Hawthorne's The Scarlet
Letter." Criticism 29.3 (1987): 313-340.
Hennelly, Mark. "The
Scarlet Letter: `A play-day for the whole world?'" New England
Q. 61.4 (Dec. 1988): 530-554.
Hilgers, Thomas L. "The
Psychology of Conflict Resolution in The Scarlet Letter: A
Non-Freudian Perspective." American Transcendental Q. 43 (Sum.
1979): 211-224.
Johnston, Paul K. "Killing
the Spirit: Anne Hutchinson and the Office of the Scarlet Letter."
Nathaniel Hawthorne review 22.1 (Sprg 1996): 26-36.
Kearns, Michael. "Narrative
Voices in the Scarlet Letter." Nathaniel Hawthorne review 22.1
(Sprg 1996): 36-53.
Kilcup, Karen L. "'Ourself
behind Ourself, Concealed -': The Homoerotics of Reading in The
Scarlet Letter." Esq : a journal of the american
renaissance 42.1 (1996): 1-.
Korobkin, Laura H. "The
Scarlet Letter of the Law: Hawthorne and Criminal Justice."
Novel 30.2 (Wint 1997): 193-218.
Lucke, Jessie R.
"Hawthorne's Madonna Image in The Scarlet Letter." New
England Q. 38 (Sep. 1965): 391-92.
Madsen, Deborah L. "`A for
Abolition': Hawthorne's Bond-Servant and the Shadow of Slavery."
Journal of American Studies 25.2 (Aug 1991): 255(5).
Milder, Robert. "The
Scarlet Letter and Its Discontents." Nathaniel Hawthorne
review 22.1 (Sprg 1996): 9-26.
Millington, Richard. "The
Office of The Scarlet Letter: An 'Inside Narrative'?"
Nathaniel Hawthorne review 22.1 (Sprg 1996): 1-9.
Newberry, Frederick. "A
Red-Hot `A' and a Lusting Divine: Sources for The Scarlet
Letter. New England Q. 60.2 (June 1987): 256-264.
Nolte, William H.
"Hawthorne's Dimmesdale: A Small Man Gone Wrong." New England
Q. 38 (Sep. 1965): 168-186.
Person Jr., Leland S.
"Hester's revenge: the power of silence in the Scarlet
Letter." Nineteenth-Century Literature 43.4 (Mar 1989):
465 (19).
Stubbs, John C. "Hawthorne's
The Scarlet Letter: The Theory of the Romance and the Use of
the New England Situation." PMLA 83 (Oct. 1968):
1439-1447.
Tucker, Edward L. "Darley's
Model for Roger Chillingworth." Nathaniel Hawthorne review
22.1 (Sprg 1996): 53-56. Turner, Arlin. The Merrill Studies in the
Scarlet Letter. Columbus: Merrill, 1970. PS1868 .T8
| Top
| The Blithedale Romance (1852):
Selected Studies
Berlant, Lauren. The
Anatomy of National Literary Fantasy: Hawthorne, Utopia, and Everyday
Life. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991.
- - -. "Fantasies of Utopia
in The Blithedale Romance." American Literary History 1
(1989): 30-62.
Brodhead, Richard H. "Veiled
Ladies: Toward a History of Antebellum Entertainment." American
Literary History 1 (Sumr1989): 273-94.
Cary, Louise D. "Margaret
Fuller as Hawthorne's Zenobia: The Problem of Moral Accountability in
Fictional Biography." ATQ 4.1 (MKar 1990): 31-48.
Edmundson, Philip N.
"Hawthorne Turns to the East: Persian Influences in The Blithedale
Romance." English Language Notes 28.2 (Dec. 1990):
25-.
Gable, Harvey L., Jr.
"Inappeasable Longings: Hawthorne, Romance, and the Disintegration of
Coverdale's Self in The Blithedale Romance." New England
Quarterly 67.2 (Jun 1994): 257-78.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The
American Notebooks. Ed. Randall Stewart. New Haven: Yale UP,
1932. PS1865 .A1
Hirsch, John C. "Zenobia as
Queen: The Background Sources to Hawthorne's The Blithedale
Romance." Nathaniel Hawthorne Journal (1971):
182-90.
Howe, Irving. "Hawthorne:
Pastoral and Politics." in his Politics and the Novel. NY:
Horizon P, 1957, 163-75.
Hull, Richard. "Critique of
Characterization: It Was In Not Knowing That He Loved Her."
Style 26.1 (Spr 1992): 33-49.
Lewis, Ffrangcon. "Women,
Death and Theatricality in The Blithedale Romance." Journal
Of American Studies 26.1 (Apr. 1992): 75-.
Mackenzie, Manfred.
"Colonization and Decolonization in The Blithedale Romance."
U of Toronto Quarterly 62.4 (Sum 1993): 504-21.
McIntosh, James. "The
Instability of Belief in The Blithedale Romance."
Prospects 9 (1984): 71-114.
Miles, Robert. "The
Blithedale Romance, Rousseau, and the Feminine Art of Dress."
Texas Studies in Literature and Language 31.2 (Sum 1989):
215-.
Millington, Richard H.
"American Anxiousness: Selfhood and Culture in Hawthorne's The
BlithedaleRomance." New England Q. 63.4 (Dec.
1990): 558-83.
Pagan, Nicholas O. "The
Governing Rhetoric of Theatrically in Hawthorne's Blithedale
Romance." The Midwest Quarterly 35.3 (Spr 1994):
324-.
Schriber, Mary S. "Justice
to Zenobia." New England Q 55 (Mar 1982): 61-78.
Tanner, Laura E. "Speaking
with `Hands at our Throats': The Struggle for Artistic Voice in
The Blithedale Romance." Studies in American Fiction
21.1 (Sprg 1993): 1-19.
Wachter, Phyllis E.
"Bibliography of Works about Life-Writing Which Links the Decades."
Biography 14.4 (Fall 1991): 379-.
Weldon, Roberta F. "Tyrant
King and Accused Queen: Father and Daughter in Nathaniel Hawthorne's
TheBlithedale Romance." ATQ. The American
Transcendental Q. 6.1 (Mar. 1992): 31-.
Colacurcio, Michael J.
"Cosmopolitan and Provincial: Hawthorne and the Reference of American
Studies." Studies in the Novel 23.1 (Sprg 1991): 3(17).
---. The Province of
Piety: Moral History in Hawthorne's Early Tales. Cambridge:
Harvard UP, 1984. PS1892 .H5 C6
Cooper, Allen. "The
Discourse of Romance: Truth and Fantasy in Hawthorne's Point of View
(`Rappaccini's Daughter,' `Alice Doane's Appeal')." Studies in
Short Fiction 28.4 (Fall 1991): 497(11).
Doubleday, Neal F.
Hawthorne's Early Tales; A Critical Study. Durham: Duke UP,
1972.
Easterly, Joan E. "Lachrymal
Imagery in Hawthorne's `Young Goodman Brown.'" Studies in Short
Fiction 28.3 (Sumr 1991): 339(5).
Eisen, Kurt. "The Tragical
History of Ethan Brand." Essays in Literature 19.1 (Sprg
1992): 55(6).
Eldred, Janet C. "Narratives
of Socialization: Literacy in the Short Story (`My Kinsman')."
College English 53.6 (Oct 1991): ,686(15).
Freedman, William. "The
Artist's Symbol and Hawthorne's Veil: `The Minister's Black Veil'
Resartus." Studies in Short Fiction 29.3 (Sumr 1992):
353(10).
Herbert, T. Walter, Jr.
"Doing Cultural Work: `My Kinsman Major Molineux' and the
Construction of the Self-Made Man." (Special Issue: Hawthorne in the
Nineties) Studies in the Novel 23.1 (Sprg 1991): 20(8).
Hazlett John D.
"`Rappaccini's Daughter': Giovanni and the Seduction of the
Transcendental Reader." ESQ: A Journal of American
Renaissance 35.1 (1989): 43-68.
Joplin, David D. "`May-Pole
of Merry Mount': Hawthorne's `L'Allegro' and `IL Penseroso.'"
Studies in Short Fiction 30.2 (Sprg 1993): 185(8).
Keetley, Dawn. "Beautiful
Poisoners: "Rappaccini's Daughter," Hanna Kinney's 1840 Murder Trial,
and the Problem of Criminal Responsibility." ESQ 44.3 (1998):
125-161.
Loughman, Celeste. "Meeting
the Dark: Autobiography in Hawthorne's Unfinished Tales." The
Gerontologist 32.6 (Dec 1992): 726(7).
Miller, John N. "Fideism vs.
Allegory in 'Rappaccini's Daughter.'" Nineteenth-Century
Literature 46.2 (Sep 1991): ,223(22).
Nelson, Ronald J. "Two
Potential Sources for Pietro Baglioni in Nathaniel Hawthorne's
'Rappaccini's Daughter.'" Studies in Short Fiction 28.4 (Fall
1991): 557(8).
Newberry, Frederick.
"Fantasy, Reality, and Audience in Hawthorne's `Drowne's Wooden
Image.'" Studies in the Novel 23.1 (Sprg 1991): 28(18).
----- "'The Artist of the
Beautiful': Crossing Transcendental Divide in H's Fiction."
Nineteenth-Century Literature 50.1 (June 1995): 78 -
Newman, Lea B. A Reader's
Guide to the Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston: G. K.
Hall, 1979. PS1888 .N4
Rosenberg, Liz. "`The Best
That Earth Could Offer': `The Birth-Mark,' a Newlywed's Story."
Studies in Short Fiction 30.2 (Sprg 1993): , 145(7).
Shear, Walter. "Cultural
Fate and Social Freedom in Three American Short Stories (`Rip Van
Winkle,' `Young Goodman Brown,' `The Jolly Corner')." Studies in
Short Fiction 29.4 (Fall 1992): 543(7).
Stich, Klaus P. "Hawthorne's
Intimations of Alchemy." American Transcendental Quarterly 5.1
(Mar 1991): 15(16).
Von Frank, Albert J.
Critical Essays on Hawthorne's Short Stories. Boston: G.K.
Hall, 1991. PS 1888 .V65
Zanger, Jules. "`Young
Goodman Brown' and `A White Heron' (Sarah Orne Jewett):
Correspondences and Illuminations." Papers on Language &
Literature 26.3 (Sumr 1990): 346(12).
Badaracco, Claire. "The
Night Blooming Cereus: A Letter from the 'Cuba Journal' 1833 35 of
Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, with a Check List of Her Autograph
Materials in American Institutions." Bulletin of Research in the
Humanities 81 (1978): 56-73.
- - -. "Pitfalls and Rewards
of the Solo Editor: Sophia Peabody Hawthorne." Resources for
American Literary Study 11.1 (Sprg 1981): 91-100.
Cowles, David L. "A Profane
Tragedy: Dante in Hawthorne's 'Rappaccini's Daughter'." ATQ 60
(1986): 5-24.
Eisiminger, Sterling. "Mrs.
Hawthorne's Editing of The French and Italian Notebooks.."
Nathaniel Hawthorne Journal 8 (1978): 89-93.
Hall, Julie E. "'Tracing the
Original Design': The Hawthornes in 'Rappaccini's Garden'."
Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 21.1 (Sprg 1995): 26-35.
Herbert, T. Walter.
Dearest Beloved: The Hawthornes and the Making of the Middle Class
Family. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.
Hurst, N. Luane J. "Sophia
Hawthorne as Literary Critic and Educator: A Letter." Nathaniel
Hawthorne Review 18.2 (Fall 1992): 5-8.
Idol, John L., Jr.
"Hawthorne on Sophia's Paintings of Lake Como." Nathaniel
Hawthorne Soc. 10.2 ( Fall 1984): 11.
MacKay, Carol H. "Hawthorne,
Sophia, and Hilda as Copyists: Duplication and Transformation in
The Marble Faun." Browning Institute Studies 12 (1984):
93-120.
Miller, Edwin H . "A
Calendar of the Letters of Sophia Peabody Hawthorne." Studies in
the American Renaissance (1986): 199-281.
Norko, Julie M. "Hawthorne's
Love Letters: The Threshold World of Sophia Peabody." ATQ 7.2
(Jun 1993): 127-39.
Person, Leland S., Jr.
"Hawthorne's Love Letters: Writing and Relationship." American
Literature 59.2 (1987): 211-227.
Valenti, Patricia D. "Sophia
Peabody Hawthorne: A Study of Artistic Influence." Studies in the
American Renaissance (1990): 1-21.
Woodson, Thomas. ed. "Sophia
Hawthorne's Diary for June 1861." Nathaniel Hawthorne Review
15.2 (Fall 1989): 1. 3-5.
- - -. ed. "With Hawthorne
in Wartime Concord: Sophia Hawthorne's 1862 Diary." Studies in the
American Renaissance (1988): 281-359.
Wright, Nathalia. "On the
Occasion of the Centennial Anniversary of Melville's Death (with
Apologies to Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne)." Melville Society
Extracts 88 (Mar 1992): 7-9.
Bell, Millicent. "Melville
and Hawthorne at the Grave of St. John (A Debt to Pierre Bayle)."
Modern Language Notes, 67 (1952), 116-118.
Canby, H. S. "Hawthorne and
Melville." Classic Americans: Eminent American Writers From Irving
To Whitman. 1931; rpt. NY: Russell & Russell, Inc.,
1959.
Carpenter Frederic I.
"Puritans Preferred Blondes: The Heroines of Melville [sic]
and Hawthorne." New England Quarterly, 9 (1936),
253-272.
Curl, Vega. Pasteboard
Masks: Fact As Spiritual Symbol In The Novels Of Hawthorne And
Melville. 1931; rpt. Philadelphia: R. West, 1976.
Gross, Seymour L. "Hawthorne
Versus Melville." Bucknell Review, 14 (1966), 89-109.
Hayford, Harrison.
"Hawthorne, Melville, and the Sea." New England Quarterly, 19
(1946), 435-452.
Hoeltje, Hubert H.
"Hawthorne, Melville, and 'Blackness.' " American Literature,
37 (1965), 41-51.
Kimmey, John L. "Pierre and
Robin: Melville's Debt to Hawthorne." Emerson Society
Quarterly, No. 38 (1965), 90-92.
Levy, Leo B. "Hawthorne,
Melville, and the Monitor." American Literature, 37 (1965),
33-40.
Lueders, Edward G. "The
Melville-Hawthorne Relationshipian." Western Humanities
Review, 4 (1950), 323-334. Maxwell, Desmond E. S. "The Tragic
Phase: Melville and Hawthorne." American Fiction: The Intellectual
Background. NY: Columbia Univ. P, 1963.
May, John R. "The
Possibility of Renewal: The Ideal and Real in Hawthorne, Melville and
Twain." Toward A New Earth: Apocalypse In The American Novel.
Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ. of Notre Dame P, 1972. [42-91]
McCarthy, Paul. "The
Extraordinary Man as Idealist in Novels by Hawthorne and Melville."
Emerson Society Quarterly, No. 54 (1969), 43-51.
[Excellent!]
McCorquodale, Marjorie
Kimball. "Melville's Pierre as Hawthorne ." The U Of Texas Studies
In English, 33 (1954), 97-102. [How about ISABEL as
Hawthorne?!!]
Miller, James E., Jr.
"Hawthorne and Melville: No! in Thunder." Quests Surd And Absurd:
Essays In American Literature. Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago P,
1967. (186-208.)
Miller, James E., Jr.
"Hawthorne and Melville: The Unpardonable Sin." Publications Of
The Modern Language Association Of America, 70 (1955),
91-114.
Murray, Henry A., et al.
Melville & Hawthorne In The Berkshires: A Symposium. Ed.
Howard P. Vincent. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State Univ. P, 1968.
Sealts, Merton M, Jr.
"Approaching Melville Through 'Hawthorne and His Mosses.' "
Emerson Society Quarterly, No. 28, Part 3 (1962),
12-15.
Seelye, John D. "
'Ungraspable Phantom': Reflections of Hawthorne in Pierre and The
Confidence-Man." Studies In The Novel, 1, No. 4 (1969),
436-443.
Stewart, Randall. "Melville
and Hawthorne." South Atlantic Quarterly, 51 1952),
436-446.
Stewart, Randall. "The
Vision of Evil in Hawthorne and Melville." The Tragic Vision And
The Christian Faith. Ed. Nathan A. Scott, Jr. NY: Association P,
1957.
Waggoner, Hyatt H.
"Hawthorne and Melville Against the Reader With Their Abode."
Studies In The Novel, 2, No. 4 (1970), 420-424.
Watson, Charles N., Jr. "The
Estrangement of Hawthorne and Melville." New England
Quarterly, 46 (1973), 380-402. [Excellent!!!!!!]
****
There are others, of course,
but there is much good reading and ruminating to be found in these
pages. And don't overlook the "Introductions" and "Notes" to be found
in various editions of Melville's works...esp. Weaver's The
Shorter Novels Of Herman Melville, and the Hendricks House
editions of Clarel, The Confidence-Man, and
Moby-Dick. (and, of course, the Northwestern-Newberry
editions)
(Compiled by Robert
Kilgore Jr)
| Top
| Reasons for Hawthorne's Current
Popularity
1. One of the most
modern of writers, Hawthorne is relevant in theme and attitude.
According to H. H. Waggoner, Hawthorne's attitudes use irony,
ambiguity, and paradox.
2. Hawthorne rounds off
the puritan cycle in American writing - belief in the existence of
an active evil (the devil) and in a sense of determinism (the
concept of predestination).
3. Hawthorne's use of
psychological analysis (pre-Freudian) is of interest today.
4. In themes and style,
Hawthorne's writings look ahead to Henry James, William Faulkner,
and Robert Penn Warren.
Major
Themes in Hawthorne's Fiction
1. Alienation - a
character is in a state of isolation because of self-cause, or
societal cause, or a combination of both. (See Appendix A for more
discussion of Themes 1 & 2).
2. Initiation - involves
the attempts of an alienated character to get rid of his isolated
condition.
3. Problem of Guilt -a
character's sense of guilt forced by the puritanical heritage or
by society; also guilt vs. innocence.
4. Pride - Hawthorne
treats pride as evil. He illustrates the following aspects of
pride in various characters: physical pride (Robin), spiritual
pride (Goodman Brown, Ethan Brand), and intellectual pride
(Rappaccini).
5. Puritan New England -
used as a background and setting in many tales.
6. Italian background -
especially in The Marble Faun.
7. Allegory - Hawthorne's
writing is allegorical, didactic and moralistic.
8. Other themes include
individual vs. society, self-fulfillment vs. accommodation or
frustration, hypocrisy vs. integrity, love vs. hate, exploitation
vs. hurting, and fate vs. free will.
1. Salem - early
childhood, later work at the Custom House.
2. Puritan family
background - one of his forefathers was Judge Hathorne, who
presided over the Salem witchcraft trials, 1692.
3. Belief in the
existence of the devil.
4. Belief in
determinism.
Hawthorne
as a Literary Artist
1. First
professional writer - college educated, familiar with the great
European writers, and influenced by puritan writers like Cotton
Mather.
2. Hawthorne displayed a
love for allegory and symbol. He dealt with tensions involving:
light versus dark; warmth versus cold; faith versus doubt; heart
versus mind; internal versus external worlds.
3. His writing is
representative of 19th century, and, thus, in the mainstream due
to his use of nature, its primitiveness, and as a source of
inspiration; also in his use of the exotic, the gothic, and the
antiquarian.
According to Stanley Bank,
Hawthorne may stand as the symbol of the 19thc. American author and
his predicament. Europe could afford the luxury of romanticizing its
past and finding its ideal in the pastoral. But America's past was
too close. Yet America's literature was in need of tradition in which
literature could flourish. Hawthorne struggled with the problem of
relevance of the artist to the world and the meaning of art to
America. The American Romanticists created a form that, at first
glance, seems ancient and traditional; they borrowed from classical
romance, adapted pastoral themes, and incorporated Gothic elements.
Was there anything unique about the American shape of prose fiction,
or was it merely an amalgam of long and fixed genres? It can be shown
that romance, as practiced in America, was a departure from each of
the genres, although related to them. Gilbert Highet, in The
Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western
Literature lists the main elements of classical romance: 1.
separated lovers who remain true to each other, while the woman's
chastity is preserved; 2. an intricate plot, including stories within
stories; 3. exciting and unexpected chance events; 4. travel to
faraway settings; 5. hidden and mistaken identity; and 6. written in
an elaborate and elegant style. Classical romance, Highet noted, is
"escape" literature; American romance brings the reader closer to
truth, not further from it. The pastoral is a literary form in which
happy country life is portrayed as a contrast to the complexity and
anxiety of the urban society. Such a contrast may be seen in the
American romancers' use of the frontier, Indian society, Arcadian
communities, Puritan villages, and shipboard societies. Few of the
characters are strictly outside the urban society to which they
provide contrast. It is clearly related to Hawthorne's creation of "a
theater, a little removed from the highway of ordinary travel, where
the creatures of his brain may play their phantasmagoric antics,
without exposing them to too close a comparison with the actual
events of real lives," and to his calling for a "license with regard
to everyday probability." But if the American romancer created
arcadias, they are arcadias that invite criticism and redirected that
criticism to the society in which the American romancers lived. Many
gothicisms have been incorporated into American romances. Typical are
the manuscript, the castle, the crime, religion, deformity, ghosts,
magic, blood, etc. In the gothic novel these characteristics are used
as the basis and end of a tale of terror. In the work of American
romancers, they are used not as the object itself, but to serve the
work.
"I have sometimes produced a
singular and not unpleasing effect, so far as my own mind was
concerned, by imagining a train of incidents in which the spirit and
mechanism of the fairyland should be combined with the characters and
manners of familiar life." - N. Hawthorne
"When a writer calls his
work a romance, he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its
fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled
to assume had he professed to be writing a novel." - N.
Hawthorne
"The word 'romance' must
signify, besides the more obvious qualities of the picturesque and
the heroic, an assumed freedom from the ordinary novelistic
requirements of verisimilitude, development and continuity; a
tendency towards melodrama and idyll; a more or less formal
abstractness and, on the other hand, a tendency to plunge into the
underside of consciousness; a willingness to abandon moral questions
or to ignore the spectacle of man in society, or to consider these
things only indirectly or abstractly." - Richard Chase
(from Stanley Bank, ed.
American Romanticism: A Shape for Fiction,
1969)
1. Explicate character,
theme, language patterns, style, use of point of view, setting, or
design in any particular short story or in The Scarlet Letter.
2. Explain what Melville
means by Hawthorne's "blackness" in his essay "Hawthorne and His
Mosses" and discuss it with specific references to any two of the
stories in the text (or any three, or with reference to specific
characters in The Scarlet Letter).
3. Explore the moral
ambiguity in any given Hawthorne character or work. What does reading
"Rappaccini's Daughter" (or "The Minister's Black Veil" or "Young
Goodman Brown") do to the reader's ability to discern "good" and
"evil" characters?
4. Consider Hawthorne's
presentation of women in his fiction. What attitudes inform his
portraits of Beatrice Rappaccini, or of Hester Prynne?
5. Consider the relationship
between "The Custom-House" and The Scarlet Letter. Where does
the narrator stand in each work? In what ways might we consider "The
Custom-House" an integral part of the longer fiction? Consider the
particular use of "The Custom-House" as a way of "explaining" or
delaying the fiction: might "The Custom-House" serve as Hawthorne's
"black veil" in facing his readers?
6. Given the
autobiographical references in "The Custom-House," consider the
possibility that each of the major characters in The Scarlet
Letter might also be aspects of the narrator's own persona.
Discuss ways in which Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger
Chillingworth, and Pearl complement each other thematically.
7. Given your earlier study
of Puritan literature, trace elements of Puritanism in Hawthorne's
stories or The Scarlet Letter and discuss the extent to which
Hawthorne himself embraces or critiques Puritan ideology. (Compare
actual Puritans you have studied with Hawthorne's fictional
characters: Anne Bradstreet with Hester Prynne; Edward Taylor with
Arthur Dimmesdale; Jonathan Edwards with various ministers in
Hawthorne, or with the narrator himself.)
8. Locate references to
childhood in The Scarlet Letter and, focusing on Pearl,
discuss Hawthorne's portrait of what it might have been like to be a
Puritan child.
9. "Certain pervasive themes
recur in Hawthorne's stories. These include: the individual's
isolation from the community; the influence of the past on the pre
sent; the consequence of sin and guilt; the process of initiation;
the limitations of self-reliance; the evil of manipulation." Select
one of these themes as a means of interpreting any one of Hawthorne's
stories discussed in class.
10. Discuss Hawthorne's
definition of Romanticism and its expression in his work.
MLA Style
Citation of this Web Page:
Reuben, Paul P.
"Chapter 3: Nineteenth Century to 1865 - Nathaniel Hawthorne."
PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and
Reference Guide. WWW URL:
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap3/hawthorne.html
(provide page date or date of your login).
