Transcript American Romanticism and Nathaniel Hawthorne+Herman Melville

Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804-1864)
“Like EdgarAllan Poe, Hawthorne took a dark view of human Nature.”
Hawthorne’s Background
Born in Salem, Massachusetts
Puritan background
Ancestor of John Hawthorne——one of the
three judges in the Salem Witch Trials
Began writing after college at Bowdion
College in Maine
Spent many years in seclusion——starving
artist
Hawthorne’s Background
Held many jobs including writer, publisher,
working at a custom house, and consult in
England
Married Sophie Peabody in 1825
Befriended Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David
Thoreau, Herman Melville, and President
Franklin pierce
Themes in Hawthorne’s Writings
Moral allegories——a story where
everything is symbol, used commonly to
instruct especially in religious matters
The sinful man
Hypocrisy
The Dark side of human nature
Religious in nature
Hawthorne’s Major Works
Two collections of short stories: Twice-told
Tales + Mosses from an Old Manse
The Scarlet Letter
His masterpiece, which established him as the
Leading American native novelist of the 19th century
Hawthorne’s Major Works
The House of the Seven Gables
The Blithedale Romance
The Marble Faun
Young Goodman Brown
Short stories:
The Minister’s Black Veil
The Birth mark
Hawthorne’s Point of View
Hawthorne is influenced by Puritanism
deeply. He was not a Puritan himself, but he
had Puritan ancestors who played an
important role in his life and works.
Hawthorne’s Point of View
1) Evil is at the core of human life.
2) Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin
or evil can be passed from generation to
generation.
3) Evil educates
4) He has disgust in science. One source of evil is
overweening intellect. His intellectual characters
are villains, dreadful and cold-blooded
Hawthorne’s aesthetic ideas
1) he took a great interest in history and
antiquity.
To him these furnish the soil on which his
mind grows to fruition.
Trying to connect a bygone time with the
very present, he makes the dream strange
things look like truth.
Hawthorne’s Writing Style
A man of literary craftsmanship, extraordinary in
The use of symbol: symbols serve as a weapon to
attack reality. It can be found everywhere in his
writing.
Revelation of characters’ psychology: he is good
at exploring the complexity of human psychology.
There isn’t much physical movement going on in
his works
The use of supernatural mixed with the actual
Hawthorne’s Writing Style
His stories are parable(allegory)——to
teach a lesson
Use of ambiguity to keep the reader in the
world of uncertainty——multiple point of
view
Hawthorne’s Aesthetic Ideas
2) he was convinced that romance was the
best form to describe America
The poverty of materials+the avoidance of
offending the puritan taste—— romances
rather than novels to tell the truth and
satirize and yet not the offend