American Romanticism
Student-led Text-Objective Discussion 2008

Thursday 9 October: Nathaniel Hawthorne, N 589-592, 605-622 (“Young Goodman Brown,” “May-Pole of Merry Mount,” & “Minister’s Black Veil”)

text-objective discussion leader ("Young Goodman Brown"): Christine Ford

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1a. To identify and criticize ideas or attitudes associated with Romanticism, such as desire and loss, rebellion, nostalgia, idealism, the gothic, the sublime, the individual in nature or separate from the masses

  • Idealism: apparent in his name Young Goodman that he is young and innocent, perhaps naïve; “she’s a blessed angel on earth,” (606); “how should I ever meet the eye of that good old man, our minister...his voice would make me tremble” (608)
     
  • Rebellion: Goodman Brown’s decision to rebel against his Puritan community and have a meeting with the devil, also the idea of sin as the ultimate expression of rebellion in man, it’s lurking under the surface all the time
     
  • Desire and loss: He has conflicting desires—on the one hand there is Faith, not only his wife but his Christian spirituality and Puritan community, and on the other hand there is Evil, which he wants to experience yet remain untainted. His loss is a loss of innocence and trust, of “(F)aith,” very much in the sense of the Fall in Genesis after Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

 

1c. The gothic novel or style (haunted physical and mental spaces, the shadow of death or decay; dark and light in physical and moral terms; film noir)

  • Descriptions of the forest as a pagan, evil space: “There came a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice of the unconverted wilderness… (612)”; “passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been gathered, nor solitary Christian prayed” (610)
     
  • Repeated use of the word “gloom” and its variations: “darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest” (606), “vanished into the deepening gloom (609),” “to the depth of the gloom (609),” “his dying hour was gloom (614)”
     

·         see p. 611 last full paragraph for strong gothic description of Black Mass in the forest

 

Gloom--1. a state of partial or total darkness; "he struck a match to dispel the gloom" 2. a feeling of melancholy apprehension 3. an atmosphere of depression and melancholy; "gloom pervaded the office" 

 

2b. To acknowledge the co-emergence and convergence of "America" and "Romanticism." European Romanticism begins near the time of the American Revolution, and Romanticism and the American nation develop ideas of individualism, sentimental nature, rebellion, and equality in parallel.

  • Hawthorne felt strong ties to both America’s revolutionary and Puritan past, largely because of his ancestors who played prominently in those aspects of American history.

2e. American Romanticism exposes competing or complementary dimensions of the American identity: is America a culture of sensory and material gratification or moral, spiritual, idealistic mission?

  • Goodman’s Brown’s struggle is with these two facets of American existence, which he is never able to resolve because of his “black and white” mindset.

 

 

Questions

 

1. In what ways is “Young Goodman Brown” typical of American Romanticism as described in objectives 2b and 2e? How does it then stack up against other American Romantic authors we’ve read thus far, in terms of exemplifying the genre?

 

2. Could Goodman Brown be classified as a Byronic hero? If yes, give examples. If no, why?

 

3. Why does Goodman Brown go into the woods to begin with? Is it curiosity, rebellion, sense of moral superiority?