Posthumous Rating of Hawthorne and “Young Goodman Brown”

Posthumous Rating of Hawthorne and “Young Goodman Brown”

This essay intends to trace the main literary criticism of the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and “Young Goodman Brown”since the author’s death in 1864.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s acclamation as a great writer by both critics and the general public was not an overnight occurrence. The Norton Anthology: American Literature states that “he was agonizingly slow in winning acclaim” (547).

Initially, of course, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s literary works went unranked among those of other American and British writers. But his reputation grew gradually even among contemporary critics, until he was recognized as a “man of genius.” The question in this essay is this: How does he and “Young Goodman Brown” fare since 1864 when Hawthorne died.

The poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote a poem commemorating Hawthorne for the funeral in 1864:

. . . . There in seclusion and remote from men

The wizard hand lies cold,

Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,

And left the tale half told.

Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power,

And the lost clew regain?

The unfinished windows in Aladdin's tower

Unfinished must remain!

In 1871 James T. Fields published Yesterdays With Authors, in which Chapter 3 deals with his evaluation of Nathaniel Hawthorne:

I AM sitting to-day opposite the likeness of the rarest genius America has given to literature,--a man who lately sojourned in this busy world of ours, but during many years of his life

"Wandered lonely as a cloud,"--

a man who had, so to speak, a physical affinity with solitude. The writings of this author have never soiled the public mind with one unlovely image. His men and women have a magic of their own, and we shall wait a long

time before another arises among us to take his place. Indeed, it seems probable no one will ever walk precisely the same round of fiction which he traversed with so free and firm a step.

What lovely thoughts! What a tribute to Hawthorne’s genius! The very next year Henry James wrote a review of Hawthorne for the Nation:

Our remarks are not provoked by any visible detriment conferred on Mr. Hawthorne's fame by these recent publications. . .His journals throw but little light on his personal feelings, and even less on his genius per se.