Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the most influential authors during the Romanticism time period. Hawthorne is most commonly known for his novel, The Scarlett Letter. That novel continues to still be read all over. In fact, I just read it for my history class. Not only can the novel be read for an English, but for a history class as well because of the Puritan background. Nathaniel Hawthorne wasn’t just an author that blended in within his era, he stood out. Hawthorne was unique. He used identifiable contexts that influenced his work, and wrote in mediums such as short stories and novels.
In my opinion what made Hawthorne so unique is that he was not only just a writer but he was a very meticulous critic on himself as well. He didn’t allow others judgment of his work to affect him, but to have some type of meaning affecting his career. Hawthorne himself says, “seldom, if ever, show any design on the writer’s part to make them so. They have none of the abstruseness of idea, or obscurity of expression, which mark the written communications of solitary mind with itself.” (Twayne’s United States Authors) This quality really stands out to me in my opinion. I feel that a lot of authors may have relied too heavily on critics and others judgments to try and better their writing in any way possible. Not only should they be taking advice from other writers and critics, but also they should be confident enough in their own writing that they did a good job.
From what I noticed reading The Scarlett Letter was that Hawthorne was very interested in Puritans, the values they had and their beliefs. Nathaniel Hawthorne himself didn’t grow up under the Puritan life style, but he was a “descendant of a long line of New Englan...
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...reading. He is to always celebrated for is contributions. Hawthorne was unique. He used identifiable contexts that influenced his work, and wrote in mediums such as short stories and novels.
Works Cited
Crow, Charles L. American Gothic : An Anthology From Salem Witchcraft To H.P. Lovecraft. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 24 April 2014.
Idol, John L., Jr. "Nathaniel Hawtorne July 4, 1804-May 19, 1864." Gale Literary Databases. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
"Nathaniel Hawthorne." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition (2013): 1. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 April 2014.
"Nathaniel Hawthorne." Twayne's United States Authors. Web. 24 April 2014.
"Nathaniel Hawthorne Writing Style." Nathaniel Hawthorne Writing Style. Web. 24 April 2014. – I used this source because it specifically talked about the authors writing style.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.”The Birth-Mark.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 340-351. Print.
Life experiences, upbringing and interactions with fellow individuals affect the person’s outlook on life in general as well as their perception of reality. Authors, poets and writers in possess a talent to describe these experiences through an art form they explicitly excel in. Hawthorne is a
Waggoner, Hyatt H. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” In Six American Novelists of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Richard Foster. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1968.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne.” The Norton Anthology: American Literature, edited by Baym et al. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1995.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s elaborately descriptive writing style has been studied and criticized by people all over the world for years. Hawthorne has been thought of as one of the greatest writers in history, but his unique style has also been negatively criticized and disapproved of. No matter the opinion of his works, the people who knew him personally respected Hawthorne. “On the day after Hawthorne’s funeral, in May 1864, [Ralph Waldo] Emerson wrote in his journal: ‘I thought him a greater man than any of his works betray…’'; (Martin 37). Hawthorne, however, was not so well thought of by people who did not know him well. Someone who would rather be creative and write than have a “real job'; was not very well respected in Hawthorne’s day. A writer who wrote fictional tales was even less respected than an author who wrote of actual events was. These unjustified opinions of writers influenced Nathaniel Hawthorne throughout his life and career in creative writing.
Everyone has experiences that change their lives and influence all that they do. Everyone has that special someone, or something, that impacts their choices and work. Nathaniel Hawthorne definitely had these types of experiences throughout his lifetime. Authors in particular have certain people they look up to when it comes to their writing, and Hawthorne had many different people like this as he was writing all of his novels, including The Scarlet Letter. He also was inspired and influenced like different events he experienced in his years, in good ways and bad.
Nathaniel Hawthorne made out his life a source of inspiration. Every event that happened in his life made him think of a way to write about it. The Scarlett Letter was written after his mother died, and it focused on his society and it was used as a strong accusation against the Puritan Americans (Gollin 2605). His works were the results of long-term contemplations of humans and the society of his time, The Minister’s Black Veil is an example of this. A story about a man who decides to walk around his town cover in a black veil that symbolizes sin, and more importantly, “how the guilt we hide from one another and about the dangers of self-absorption” (Gollin 2604). Every major event in his life brought a new theme to his writings and that made it stand out. Just like Irving, he decided that he wanted to pursue of life full of
Lang, H.J. “How Ambiguous is Hawthorne?” In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Nathaniel Hawthorne is a well known 19th century author. One reason he is well known is his view towards Puritanism. Hawthorne would often criticize Puritanism in his short stories and novels. Two short stories that show Hawthorne’s view of Puritanism are “Young Goodman Brown” and “The ministers black veil”.
The man Nathaniel Hawthorne, an author of the nineteenth century, was born in 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. It was there that he lived a poverty-stricken childhood without the financial support of a father, because he had passed away in 1808. Hawthorne was raised strictly Puritan, his great-grandfather had even been one of the judges in the Puritan witchcraft trials during the 1600s. This and Hawthorne’s destitute upbringing advanced his understanding of human nature and distress felt by social, religious, and economic inequities. Hawthorne was a private individual who fancied solitude with family friends. He was also very devoted to his craft of writing. Hawthorne observed the decay of Puritanism with opposition; believing that is was a man’s responsibility to pursue the highest truth and possessed a strong moral sense. These aspects of Hawthorne’s philosophy are what drove him to write about and even become a part of an experiment in social reform, in a utopian colony at Brook Farm. He believed that the Puritans’ obsession with original sin and their ironhandedness undermined instead of reinforced virtue. As a technician, Hawthorne’s style in literature was abundantly allegorical, using the characters and plot to acquire a connection and to show a moral lesson. His definition of romanticism was writing to show truths, which need not relate to history or reality. Human frailty and sorrow were the romantic topics, which Hawthorne focused on most, using them to finesse his characters and setting to exalt good and illustrate the horrors of immorality. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s experiences as a man, incite as a philosopher and skill as a technician can be seen when reading The Scarlet Letter.
Lathrop, G. P., ed. "Hawthorne, Nathaniel." The Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. Binghamton, New York: Vail-Ballou, 1962. 439-40. Print.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. Charlottesville, Va: University of Virginia Library, 1996. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Kaul, A. N., Ed.. "HAWTHORNE: A Collection of Critical Essays." Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1966.
Hawthorne is a dark romantic because of his early life, dismal adulthood. He grew up without a father, when he was four his father died, leaving his mother and two sisters (Pearson 1). Pearson said the woods helped young Hawthorne heal, when he was young he was considered to be “delicate”, and Hawthorne became a reckless child injuring himself leaving him laid up for almost a year (1). While he was healing he developed a strong love for reading (1). When he was old enough he added a W to his name to escape his ancestor’s background because his great-great-grandfather was a judge at the Salem Witch Trials, and he was the only man to not apologize for sentencing innocent people to their deaths (Allen 454). “I take shame upon myself for their sakes and pray that any curse incurred by them…may now and henceforth removed” (454). Hawthorne was also fascinated by common man because he saw himself different from them, and he avoided failures daily (Bloom 33). Hawthorne didn’t waste his time “chatting” with people especially people who he thought of as fools (33). Hawthorne’s methods were to love and pity mankind more than he mocked them, he never created a character which didn’t possess a soul; another method was to write with a noble respect for his own...
Martin, Terence. Nathaniel Hawthorne. Revised Edition. Twayne’s United States Authors Series. G.K. Hall & Company. Massachusetts. 1983.