Critical Analysis of the American Renaissance
Uploaded by wendimill on Nov 03, 2011
The book I chose to write my critical synopsis on is American Renaissance, by F. O. Matthiessen. I chose the section on Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I believe Matthiessen’s purpose in writing on Nathaniel Hawthorne is to show the reader several characteristics of Hawthorne as a writer and compare him with others, and also to let the reader understand more clearly his purposes and thinking processes dealing with his works.
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville were very fond of each other. Some say that Melville was a “contributing cause” to Hawthorne’s talent. Melville was so fond of Hawthorne that he dedicated his book “Moby Dick” to him. Melville was “fixed and fascinated by the haunting blackness” in Hawthorne’s tales. Melville admired in Hawthorn his somberness. He believed that it must have been personal suffering that led to this because “this only can enable any man to depict it in others.”
Some critics believe that Hawthorne didn’t concentrate on issues of his present time and that his works were mainly of the past, thus failing his obligation to regard his present day. This is not true that Hawthorne didn’t fulfill his obligation to society because what he wrote about could pertain to his present day.
Hawthorne’s use of native legends delighted Longfellow. He also found delighting the idea that Hawthorne had of beauty in the common place. Henry James didn’t like in Hawthorne his accounts of nature. Hawthorne wrote many pages of accounts of strolls in the countryside. He also delighted in the people he encountered on his trips.
Matthiessen relays to us that Hawthorne might have introduced too much material in his writings for a short story. Hawthorne did imagine a situation in its entirety, which Matthiessen tells us. This might justify the position that he introduced many different things in his works.
Many of Hawthorne’s characters were artists in different aspects. In 1836 he wrote “The Prophetic Pictures,” about a painter, and in 1844 “Drownes Wooden Image” about a woodcarver. Owen Warlund, a character in “The Artist of the Beautiful” is also an artist. Hawthorne has other characters that are artistic; Dimmesdale who is...