Career
• 1825-1827: Salem (reading and writing ) • 1839-1840: Boston Customs House • 1842: getting married and living at the Old Manse • 1846-1849: Salem Customs House • 1853-1857: United States Consul at Liverpool • 1857-59: Rome and Florence • 1860: returning to America • 1864: death
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
• Novelist • Short Story Writer • Central Figure of American Renaissance
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
• Life Story • Literary Characteristics • The Scarlet Letter
Education
• Bowdoin College (1821-1825)
In the college met future president Franklin Pierce future poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow future congressman Jonathan Cilley future naval reformer Horatio Bridge.
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The Scarlet Letter
Main Characters
• Hester Prynne: a pretty young woman; embodiment of the American Dream; self-reliant; courageous; faithful to love; independent; strong-willed; capable; angel like. • Arthur Dimmesdale • Roger Chillingworth As his name suggests, Roger Chillingworth is a man deficient in human warmth.
His Themes
His works are deeply concerned with: • the ethical problems of sin, • punishment, • atonement (赎罪) .
Style
• • • • • • • Romance fiction Long visual descriptions Formal dialogues (human emotion) Character’s inner struggle Symbolism and allegory Flowing and almost feminine Ambiguity
Life Story
• Childhood • Education • Career

• Birth: Salem, Massachusetts; July 4, 1804 • Prominent ancestors: colonial magistrate (Quakers) judge (Salem Witchcraft Trial in 1692) • father: sea captain dying in 1808 • Leading a secluded life
Significance
Hawthorne is significant • 1)as a romantic writer because he used the New England regional past as subject and setting for his stories and he showed great concern about the American past. • 2) for his themes • 3) for his style
• 1860: The Marble Faun (1860) • 《玉石雕像》
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 (too proud of oneself) intellect.
The Salem Witchcraft Trials
• Time: May-October of 1692 • One of the darkest times in American history of religious tolerance • Among the last outbreaks of the persecution of accused witches
Literary Characteristics
• Major Works • Hawthorne’s point of view • Style
Major Works
• 1837-1842: Twice-Told Tales 《故事重述》 • 1846: Mosses from an Old Manse 《古屋青苔》 • 1850: The Scarlet Letter《红字》 • 1851: The House of the Seven Gables 《带七个尖角阁的房子》 • 1852: The Blithedale Romance《福谷传 奇》