The Threads of The Scarlet Letter: A Study of Hawthorne's Transformative ArtThe Threads of The Scarlet Letter offers new discoveries regarding the origins of Hawthorne's masterpiece, as well as critical interpretations based on these discoveries. Relying on a blend of close reading, biographical analysis, and archival research, this book demonstrates anew the power of traditional scholarship. The Threads of The Scarlet Letter illuminates Hawthorne's transformation of Poe's celebrated tale The Tell-Tale Heart and Lowell's long-neglected poem A Legend of Brittany and, identifying the hitherto-unknown author of the seminal narrative The Salem Belle, investigates Hawthorne's brilliant borrowing from that novel as well. The present volume argues that Hawthorne repeatedly attenuated his sources, but also allowed sufficient detail to permit their recognition. Furthermore, this volume elaborates Hawthorne's reworking of formal traditions in The Scarlet Letter--traditions that importantly clarify the meaning of the whole. The Scarlet Letter is shown to be a complex rendering of man's fall and redemption, and a triumphant assertion of literary vocation. The Threads of The Scarlet Letter includes a useful bibliographical overview of the history of the study of the origins of Hawthorne's greatest work. |
Contents
9 | |
17 | |
A Tale by Poe | 22 |
A Poem by Lowell | 36 |
A Novel by Ebenezer Wheelwright | 64 |
The Matter of Form | 97 |
Conclusion | 110 |
A Bibliographical Overview | 113 |
Notes | 125 |
Bibliography | 161 |
Index | 191 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam Blair American Literature Anne Hutchinson Antinomian Antinomian Controversy appeared Arthur Dimmesdale Berg Collection borrowed Boston Miscellany chapter Charles chiasmus chiastic Chillingworth church organ passage Colacurcio Concord confession copy critical Crusoe Custom House Ebenezer Wheelwright edition editor Election Sermon Elizabeth Palmer Peabody England Fessenden guilt Hawthorne wrote Hawthorne's novel Hester Prynne Historical issue James Russell Lowell January John Wheelwright judgment Legend of Brittany literary Lucy Cleveland Magazine Maria Louisa Hawthorne Maria White mentioned minister Mordred murder narrative Nathaniel Hawthorne Newburyport noted offered Peabody Essex Museum Pearl Penn perhaps permission Phillips Library Pioneer Poe's Poets published Puritan quoted regard Review of Poems Romance Salem Belle Salem witchcraft scaffold scene Scarlet Letter sister Sophia Hawthorne Sophia Peabody stanzas suggested Sun of Righteousness tale Tappan and Dennet Tell-Tale Heart Thomas thorne thorne's threads tion Traditions of Palestine Trellison William writing York Public Library
Popular passages
Page 55 - I will rise now, And go about the city in the streets, And in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth...
Page 101 - For, behold, the day cometh, That shall burn as an oven ; And all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble : And the day that cometh shall burn them up, Saith the LORD of hosts, That it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name Shall the Sun of righteousness arise With healing in his wings ; And ye shall go forth, And grow up as calves of the stall.
Page 102 - Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence. 18 When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up.
Page 112 - ... about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory. At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape.
Page 47 - T is as if a rough oak that for ages had stood, With his gnarled bony branches like ribs of the wood, Should bloom, after cycles of struggle and scathe, With a single anemone trembly and rathe ; His strength is so tender, his...
Page 112 - And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into...
Page 156 - A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope.
Page 101 - For behold the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven ; and all the proud, yea and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble : and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
Page 99 - ... both. All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings ; and on this simple slab of slate — as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport — there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which might serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend ; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow : — "ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE...
Page 91 - Hutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect. She might, in one of her phases, have been a prophetess. She might, and not improbably would, have suffered death from the stern tribunals of the period, for attempting to undermine the foundations of the Puritan establishment.