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Nathaniel Hawthorne. Biographical Information. Born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804 as Nathaniel Hathorne . His family descended from the early settlers of the Mass. Bay Colony.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne Biographical Information
Born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804 as Nathaniel Hathorne. • His family descended from the early settlers of the Mass. Bay Colony. • Descendant: John Hathorne was one of the judges during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, who was one of the ones responsible for the deaths of about 19 people. • Nathaniel was disturbed by his kinship with John, so he added a “w” to his name and became Nathaniel Hawthorne. • Nathaniel’s father died when he was young and was raised by his single mother. • His life changed when he attended Bowdoin College in Maine.
College & friends • In college he met 2 people who would impact his life: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (would become famous poet) & Franklin Pierce (who would become the President of the U.S.) • After college, Hawthorne began writing (historical sketches & an anonymous novel, Fanshawe about his days in college). • Worked as an editor and as a customs surveyor. • He socialized with Ralph Waldo Emerson & Margaret Fuller, who would become important American writers. • In time, he quits his job and attempts a utopian experiment at Brook Farm, designed to promote economic self-sufficiency and transcendentalist principles.
Brook Farm & Old Manse * Transcendentalism – religious & philosophical movement of the early 19th cent., • belief that divinity manifests itself everywhere, esp. in the natural world. • A personalized & direct relationship with the divine is better than religion • Hawthorne married transcendentalist, Sophia Peabody 1842. • They leave Brook Farm and settle in Old Manse, a home in Concord where Emerson once lived. • During this time, America was politically independent, but it was searching for its cultural independence. • Hawthorne writes Mosses from an Old Manse (collection of essays & stories), which nicely displayed early America.
Works: • Hawthorne began to work again as a customs surveyor, like the narrator of the Scarlet Letter, at a post in Salem. • He lost his job in 1850 and published The Scarlet Letter and received widespread acclaim. • Other major novels: The House of Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852), and The Marble Faun (1860). • Pres. Franklin Pierce had Hawthorne write him a campaign biography and appointed him as U.S. consul. • Hawthorne spent the next 6 years in Europe. • In 1864, he died after returning home.
Puritans & The Scarlet Letter • The majority of his works dealt with America’s Puritan past as in the Scarlet Letter. • Puritans were a group of religious reformers who arrived in Mass. In the 1630s under John Winthrop (whose death is mentioned in the novel). • Puritans were known for their intolerance of dissenting ideas and lifestyles. As a result, they were repressive and authoritarian. • He portrays the human soul under extreme pressures. • The lives of the 3 main characters reflect universal experiences. This universality ensured him the title “American Shakespeare” (as Melville called him).
