文档介绍：2009
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Lecture Eight
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) (New England novelists: Hawthorne, Mrs Stowe, 1811-1896): a great American novelist and a master of short story in the 19th century; regarded by some people to be the first great novelist of the American nation (史志康,美国文学背景概观,上海外语教育出版社,1998, p. 61)
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1. Biographical information:
born into a Puritan family in Salem, Massachusetts, New England; left Salem and went to Bowdoin College at the age of 17, where he had Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) and Franklin Pierce (1804-1869, later the 14th President of the United States, 1853-1857) as his classmates; returned to Salem after his graduation from university (1825), and lived in solitude and seclusion for 12 years (1825--1837) during which he read widely, preparing for his literary career.
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2. Major works:
1) Four novels:
The Scarlet Letter (1850): which made him famous as the greatest writer living then in America; his reputation as a major American writer has been on the increase ever since;
The House of the Seven Gables (1851);
The Blithedale Romance (1852);
The Marble Faun (1860)
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2) Collections of short stories:
Twice-Told Tales (1837; short stories and essays);
Moses from an Old Manse (1846,1842, 1843?)
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3. Themes and views:
immensely interested in religion. Yet his thought concerning religion is contradictory. On the one hand he was deeply influenced by the Puritanical thought, and took the basic doctrines of the Puritans to be the standard of looking at man and the world, and had a strong sense of “original sin”, but on the other hand he fiercely attacked the religious fanaticism and intolerance (偏执、偏狭) of the Puritans.
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Hawthorne has been considered to be the first American fiction writer to work in the moralistic tradition. He showed a great interest in the problems of sin and evil. All his life, he seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life. To him, evil exists in the human hea