Nathaniel Hawthorne: Writing from America’s Puritan Past

Welcome to American Legends. My name is Tiffany Brannon. Each culture has its legends, and that could be myths or different stories, but here in America, our greatest legends are the wonderful heroes who are right from our history pages. Now, some of these heroes are very famous and some are obscure, but each person deserves to be discovered because each man or woman stands as a great example of how we can be better Americans Two distinct schools of thought shaped colonial America in the years leading up to the revolution. The strict Christian morality of the Puritan settlers and the new enlightened thinking of the Enlightenment. Although authors like Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, who were deists, influenced American colonists to believe in the equality of man and the idea of liberty, the Founding Fathers never lost sight of those strong Christian roots and the moral compass which they gave. Throughout the 250 years of American history since the revolution, American artists of every ilk have used their creativity to explore and expound upon what Americanism means to them. When it comes to novels, perhaps one of the greatest explorations comes from a 19th century American novelist named Nathaniel Hawthorne. Coming from an old Massachusetts family with roots that ran centuries deep, Nathaniel Hawthorne was part of the Puritan tradition which shaped the early days of America's colonies. The greatest work which he wrote during his lifetime could arguably be called The Scarlet Letter, one of his four works which he considered romances, but which could also be called novels. To write this work, he drew on those two schools of thought and his own background, as well as the different movements and ideas which were shaping America during that time. He was one of the foremost writers in what is called the American Renaissance, as a leader of the American romanticism movement. And The Scarlet Letter was highly influenced by those movements, as well as his own Puritan background. The Scarlet Letter was the first successful novel which Hawthorne wrote, as before that he was mainly known for writing short stories or magazine articles. This work came at the midpoint of his career and his life. It was published in March of 1850, when Hawthorne was 45 years old. It followed a dry spell in his writing when he'd spent the past few years working in a dull political position as the chief executive officer. Although this period stunted his creative inspiration for writing, it provided the steady income which he needed for his family. It also provided the fodder for the essay or introduction Custom House, which was published alongside The Scarlet Letter in its first publication. The original publisher of this work had suggested that he included something alongside The Scarlet Letter because it was too short. And rather than an arbitrary addition to a first publication, I think the Custom House serves as an excellent introduction because it provides rare and valuable insight into Hawthorne's feelings and thoughts, particularly relating to Salem. You see, Hawthorne came from the same kind of background which is depicted in The Scarlet Letter. This novel takes place in colonial Massachusetts, in the city of Salem, and Hawthorne was descended from leaders of this period going back to the 17th century. In fact, some very important leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were his direct ancestors. However, as he began his writing career shortly after graduating from college, Hawthorne changed the spelling of his surname. The family name was originally H-A-T-H-O-R-N-E. He added the W, making it more like the name of the tree, and in so doing some have said he may have done that to distance himself from his stern relations and their rather grim reputations, such as having been involved in the Salem witch trials. Nevertheless, he was unafraid to openly discuss his relation to these powerful men of the past in Custom House and to express his own relationship with the city of Salem. Custom House elicited outrage from residents of Salem because of its thinly veiled references and caricatures of important political officials of the time. Today, it merely makes for rather comical reading as he describes these Dickens-like characters, yet people of that day knew exactly whom he was discussing. And despite this outrage, the book proved to be highly successful, selling out all 2,500 of its copies in the original printing within 10 days. And in the second edition, which shortly followed, Hawthorne wrote a little addendum to the introduction, basically saying that he wasn't sorry and that he had no intention of omitting Custom House from the publication. Despite this little controversy, the book proved to be an instant classic and highly popular. It resonated with people because, I would say, it followed that age-old rule of writing, write what you know. That's exactly what Hawthorne did, as his own history and roots were so deeply tied to that city. Hawthorne was born in the city of Massachusetts on July 4th, 1809. He always seemed destined to have an important place in American history, having been born on the 4th of July. And his father was a captain of a ship who sadly died when Hawthorne was very young, since he was lost at sea. Hawthorne himself sometimes felt the call to the sea, but never pursued it as more than a passenger on a ship. Instead, he turned his hand to writing right away. After college, he wrote his first novel, but it wasn't very successful. And he later tried to remove all traces of it because he felt it was far inferior to his later works. He did get started writing various short stories and magazine articles, essays, even biographies of well-known historical figures. One of the more unusual writing exercises in which he engaged was writing a biography of Franklin Pierce as he was seeking presidency, as eventually he would become the 14th president. This has been an interesting mark on Hawthorne's reputation, as Pierce is remembered as one of the worst presidents, but he was a personal friend of Hawthorne. And as one can see in the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne always was a sensitive soul who had a bit of a soft spot in his heart for the human weakness in his fellow man. In Custom House, Hawthorne admitted his complicated relationship with his native city, where he lived on and off for many years throughout his lifetime, writing that, quote, "...though invariably happiest elsewhere, there was within me a feeling for old Salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, I must be content to call affection." That reluctant affection is reflected in his great novel, as he neither glorifies nor condemns Salem and its historic residents. As a sensitive soul and a great romantic at heart, Hawthorne was keenly aware of the fact that the chosen profession of his life would have been viewed very unfavorably by his stern ancestors of old. He talks about this in Custom House, referring to the fact that he's basically an idler by nature, and that it's always been very difficult for him to do any meaningful work with his life. He wrote, "...no aim that I have ever cherished would they recognize as laudable. No success of mine would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful." He went on to say that his writing career would be just as bad as being a fiddler, which invariably was deemed as one of the most disgraceful of professions by the Puritans. The Scarlet Letter is halfway between a historical fiction and a family history, as Hawthorne populated the pages with real characters from history, sometimes very much as they actually were, and other times sort of made into the kind of characters he wanted them to be. For instance, Anne Hibbons, a woman who was actually executed for witchcraft in 1656, appears in the book as the sister of the pious governor, Richard Bellingham, another real person, as she attempts to lure Hester Prynne, the heroine of the novel, to join her and her coven in a midnight tryst with Satan in the woods. Although none of his relatives appear by name in the book, the history which he had heard about these real people throughout his life undeniably influenced him as he was crafting this work of fiction. Hawthorne referred to, quote, the figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, who was present to my boyish imagination as far back as I can remember. It still haunts me and induces a sort of home feeling with the past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the present phase of the town. The word romance is a word which can mean many different things. As a language, it means coming from Latin. In a love sense, we all know it means that romantic feeling. It's a hard word to define without using the word again. But in an artistic sense, it can mean several different things, as the Romantic era is a distinct period of classical music as well as literature. This Romantic era of literature is defined as distinctly American and taking place in predominantly the pre-Civil War days, such as the 1830s, 40s, and 50s. And Hawthorne was one of the main important figures in that period. You could say it was sort of the American version of the great poetry and Gothic novels from Europe, with authors like Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. In fact, Nathaniel Hawthorne in real life was often called a Byronic hero, and the ladies who knew him said that he was at least as handsome as Lord Byron. As for himself, Hawthorne claimed the term romantic as it pertained to the word romance to define a book. In fact, The Scarlet Letter was originally called The Scarlet Letter, A Romance. He classified it not as a novel but as a romance. And I think that distinction exists still more in other languages, as in German, for instance, the word Roman means a novel. Hawthorne described the distinction between a novel and a romance in the foreword to his later romance, The House of the Seven Gables. He defined that a novel is, quote, presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. Whereas a romance, quote, has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances to a great extent of the writer's own choosing or creation. So in a less poetic way of saying it, a novel is something that's very believable or realistic, and a romance, whereas not strictly fiction, is more idealized or a little more fanciful in terms of how the author imagines things could be. And I suppose that's why we could say this is sort of the romanticized version of a story, such as when Hollywood will adapt a work, such as a person's biopic. It could be more the romantic version because it just makes a better story to do it a certain way. Against the backdrop of the unflinchingly realistic Puritan town of Salem, Hawthorne presented the three powerful central characters. Hester Prynne, the fallen woman who is given the badge of shame of the scarlet letter, which is the letter A, embroidered on her dress. The clergyman Arthur Dimmesdale, who is revered as almost a saint by his community, but who seems to have a deep, dark secret. And Roger Chillingsworth, the twisted, cruel doctor and scorned husband. These characters are archetypes as well as deeply nuanced individuals. And the power of the story exists in the fact that it really could be told in any time or place. It happens to be against the backdrop of this Puritan community, but it could be in many other time periods. The rest of the characters are merely supporting players to those three central characters. The symbolism in the work is very powerful and a good part of how it's a romance. Particularly the use of that letter A, both as it's embroidered in the scarlet threads on Hester's dress, and it later appears as a fiery meteor in the heavens, and finally on Arthur Dimmesdale's bare skin near the end. The power of it is that Hawthorne never says what word the A represents. He leaves it merely to the understanding of the reader, which makes it far more powerful than if he had bandied about the word, which we all know it to represent. In fact, that letter, which is meant to be a mark of shame, comes to be the redemption of Hester Prynne, the fallen heroine, as later it represents her industrious, redeemed nature. Her neighbors eventually declare it that it meant able, so strong was Hester Prynne with a woman's strength. Some literary critics have said that Hawthorne's writing is often anti-Puritan. Reading A Custom House, however, I find that that's far too narrow a view. Hawthorne was clearly such a sensitive, thoughtful individual that he couldn't be merely anti-anything. He looked at the many layers of human nature, and he studied that and presented it, being influenced by the strong moral background of his family and his community, but also the deep thinking of the Transcendentalist movement and the Unitarian denomination, both of which his wife, Sophia, introduced to his life and his way of thinking. He also was introduced to the visual arts and creative painting and other such works by his very creative wife, and she proved a great muse, inspiring him to achieve the fame which was not something he would have tried to attain on his own. He also was inspired to be more serious-minded and industrious through fatherhood, which came later in life to him. Although he would often struggle with periods of lack of inspiration, he was inspired by his family and by his love for beautiful ideas to delve deeper into the true heart of things and to draw inspiration from moonlight falling on the floor of his house, or such other beautiful imagery which he describes in Custom House. Rather than denouncing the Puritans as stern or prudish people, I think that Hawthorne revealed a great truth about human nature in general in The Scarlet Letter. It's so easy to choose one person or one group of people as a scapegoat, oftentimes for a deserved wrongdoing, yet at the same time we don't see the same flaw in others we put on a pedestal or in ourselves. This wasn't something just the Puritans do, this is something that all humankind is wont to do. And in its simple truth but clear, powerful writing, that novel, or romance, as we should say, captures that truth. It also represents the American way of believing someone to be innocent until proven guilty, as the Puritans did not do with Hester Prynne, nor did they do with the Salem witch trials. And while not condemning them outright, it's a powerful reminder that we need to use justice according to the laws which our founding fathers wisely put together, and which he celebrated and glorified in showing the rich history of success and failure which has built our nation. Thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you'll join me next time for more American Legends.