CONTENT
INTRODUCTION 2
1. N. Hawthorne' life, novels and the contributions and achievements of his works 7
2. Nathaniel Hawthorne's great novel " The Scarlet Letter " 9
3. Religious and social aspects of the novel "The Scarlet Letter " 15
INTERNET RESOURCES……………………………………………………....27
INTRODUCTION
Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the most admired American authors of the 19th century, and his reputation has endured to the present day. His novels, including The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, are widely read in schools.A native of Salem, Massachusetts, Hawthorne often incorporated the history of New England, and some lore related to his own ancestors, into his writings. And by focusing on themes such as corruption and hypocrisy he dealt with serious issues in his fiction.Often struggling to survive financially, Hawthorne worked at various times as a government clerk, and during the election of 1852 he wrote a campaign biography for a college friend, Franklin Pierce. During Pierce's presidency Hawthorne secured a posting in Europe, working for the State Department.Another college friend was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And Hawthorne was also friendly with other prominent writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Herman Melville. While writing Moby Dick, Melville felt the influence of Hawthorne so profoundly that he changed his approach and eventually dedicated the novel to him.Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in Maine in 1821 and began writing short stories and a novel. Returning to Salem, Massachusetts, and his family, in 1825, he finished a novel he had started in college, Fanshawe. Unable to get a publisher for the book, he published it himself. He later disavowed the novel and tried to stop it from circulating, but some copies did survive.Nathaniel Hawthorne, with his intellectual ideas, left a permanent mark on world literature. It has been nearly two centuries, and he still wields a strong influence on the global literary scene. His witty ideas and critical intelligence never ran out of topic. He had a significant influence on other writers, critics, and philosophers. His masterpieces provided the principles for the writers of succeeding generations while his commentary against wrong practices exercised in the world is relevant even in today’s world. He successfully documented his ideas about love and religion in his writings that also today writers try to imitate his unique style, considering him a beacon for writing prose.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Major Works Best Novels: He was an outstanding writer some of his best novels include The Blithedale Romance, The Scarlet Letter, Fanshawe, The House of the Seven Gables, and The Romance of Monte Beni.Short Stories: Besides novels, he tried his hands on shorter fiction, some of them include “The Hollow of the Three Hills”, “The Man of Adamant”, “and The Artist of the Beautiful”, “Fire Worship and The Ambitious Guest.”
He died in his sleep on the 19th of May in 1864 in Plymouth, New Hampshire.
His Career
Nathaniel Hawthorne stands among the leading figures of American history who started his literary career at a young age and enjoyed fame during his lifetime. After graduation, his first novel made a public appearance. Later he worked as an editor of an American magazine. However, the real transformation came during his stay at Boston, and he enjoyed the company of Thomas Green Fessenckn, a distinguished literary figure. Also, at Concord, his meetings with some of the prominent philosophers and social thinkers including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau further accelerated his literary career. He published his short stories collection, Mosses from an Old Manse in 1846. His masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, hit the shelves in 1850. This world-famous novel fictionalizes the story of two unfortunate lovers of Puritan communities who are kept apart by their weaknesses and irony of fate. Weaving the story of a cursed Pynchon family, he produced his next work, The House of Seven Gables, in 1851. His other notable works include Tanglewood Tales, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun.
His Style
Nathaniel Hawthorne, with his unique writing style, stands among the top American fiction writers. His writings won universal acclaim with the use of imagery, symbolism, allegory, and irony along with a simple and straightforward writing style. His works speak about the mastery of his art such as The Scarlet Letter presents the highly integrated structures, inextricably bound characters, and tangled life web. His other short stories reflect the mastery of his classic literary style, which is superb due to its clarity, richness, and directness. Moreover, his moral insight plays a significant role in most of his writings, where he presented a sincere and honest outlook of corroded by sufferings and challenges. Love also marks the center of his works, but there is no romantic escape fictionalized in his works. Instead, he displayed scrutiny of mental and physical facts of life. The recurring themes in most of his writings are love, life, religion, and dark romanticism.Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Impact on Future Literature
Famous Quotes
There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. (The Scarlet Letter). By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the places — whether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forest — where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot. (Young Goodman Brown).That pit of blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere … the firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage-scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the chasm. (The Marble Faun) Literary Career During the decade after college Hawthorne submitted stories such as "Young Goodman Brown" to magazines and journals. He was often frustrated in his attempts to get published, but eventually a local publisher and bookseller, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody began to promote him.Peabody's patronage introduced Hawthorne to prominent figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson. And Hawthorne would eventually marry Peabody's sister.As his literary career began to show promise, he secured, through political friends, an appointment to a patronage job in the Boston custom house. The job provided an income, but was fairly boring work. After a change in political administrations cost him the job, he spent about six months at Brook Farm, a Utopian community near West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Hawthorne married his wife, Sophia, in 1842, and moved to Concord, Massachusetts, a hotbed of literary activity and home to Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau. Living in the Old Manse, the house of Emerson's grandfather, Hawthorne entered a very productive phase and he wrote sketches and tales.
With a son and a daughter, Hawthorne moved back to Salem and took another government post, this time at the Salem custom house. The job mostly required his time in the mornings and he was able to write in the afternoons.After the Whig candidate Zachary Taylor was elected president in 1848, Democrats like Hawthorne could be dismissed, and in 1848 he lost his posting at the custom house. He threw himself into the writing of what would be considered his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter.
Fame and Influence
Seeking an economical place to live, Hawthorne moved his family to Stockbridge, in the Berkshires. He then entered the most productive phase of his career. He finished The Scarlet Letter, and also wrote The House of the Seven Gables.While living in Stockbridge, Hawthorne befriended Herman Melville, who was struggling with the book that became Moby Dick. Hawthorne's encouragement and influence was very important to Melville, who openly acknowledged his debt by dedicating the novel to his friend and neighbor.The Hawthorne family was happy in Stockbridge, and Hawthorne began to be acknowledged as one of America's greatest authors.
Campaign Biographer
In 1852 Hawthorne's college friend, Franklin Pierce, received the Democratic Party's nomination for president as a dark horse candidate. In an era when Americans often did not know much about the presidential candidates, campaign biographies were a potent political tool. And Hawthorne offered to help his old friend by quickly writing a campaign biography.Hawthorne's book on Pierce was published a few months before the November 1852 election, and it was considered very helpful in getting Pierce elected. After he became president, Pierce paid back the favor by offering Hawthorne as diplomatic post as the American consul in Liverpool, England, a thriving port city.In the summer of 1853 Hawthorne sailed for England. He worked for the U.S. government until 1858, and while he kept a journal he didn't focus on writing. Following his diplomatic work he and his family toured Italy and returned to Concord in 1860.Back in America, Hawthorne wrote articles but did not publish another novel. He began to suffer ill health, and on May 19, 1864, while on a trip with Franklin Pierce in New Hampshire, he died in his sleep
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