LITR 5535: American Romanticism

Student Presentation on Reading Selections 2006

Monday 9 October: Nathaniel Hawthorne, N 579-584, 610-635 (“Young Goodman Brown,” “May-Pole of Merry Mount,” & “Minister’s Black Veil”)

selection reader / discussion leader: Angela Douglas

Nathaniel Hawthorne

-                     He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, where his birthplace is now a house museum.

-                     His grandfather, John Hathorne, was one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692.

-           His best-known works include THE SCARLET LETTER (1850) and THE       HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES (1851).

-           His second, expanded edition of TWICE-TOLD TALES (1837), was praised by          Edgar Allan Poe in Graham's Magazine. "We know of few compositions which     the critic can more honestly commend that these Twice-Told Tales," Poe stated.       "As Americans, we feel proud of the book." Poe's Review

“The Minister’s Black Veil”

“The Minister's Black Veil” first appeared in an annual anthology, The Token, in 1836, and was collected in Twice Told Tales the following year. As Hawthorne points out in a footnote to the story, the character of Mr. Hooper has similarities to those of a real-life clergyman who died some eighty years earlier, Joseph Moody of Maine. However, he says, the veil worn by Moody had a different import as that of Mr. Hooper: the former had accidentally killed a friend, and for the rest of his life hid his face from men.

The Byronic Hero

Ÿ         The Byronic hero does not possess "heroic virtue" in the usual sense; instead, he has many dark qualities.

[Our course objective 1(a) “Romantic Spirit” says “A Romantic hero or heroine may appear empty or innocent of anything except readiness or desire to transform or self-invent.”]

Ÿ         He is usually isolated from society as a wanderer or is in exile of some kind.

Ÿ         Often the Byronic hero is moody by nature or passionate about a particular issue.

Ÿ         Due to these characteristics, the Byronic hero is often a figure of repulsion, as well as fascination.

“The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. Mr. Hooper, a gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly dust from his Sunday's garb. There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. On a nearer view it seemed to consist of two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth and chin, but probably did not intercept his sight, further than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things. With this gloomy shade before him, good Mr. Hooper walked onward, at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat, and looking on the ground, as is customary with abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners who still waited on the meeting-house steps. But so wonder-struck were they that his greeting hardly met with a return.”

“He could not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that others would make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way.”

Questions:

Does Mr. Hooper fit the description of a Byronic Hero?  If so, how?

What are Mr. Hooper’s reasons for wearing the veil?

What are some elements of the gothic in “The Minister’s Black Veil?”

How does Hawthorne’s version of the gothic compare to Poe’s?

Poe’s comments on “The Minister’s Black Veil”

“The Minister's Black Veil” is a masterly composition of in which the sole defect is that to the rabble its exquisite skill will be caviare. The obvious meaning of this article will be found to smother its insinuated one. The moral put into the mouth of the dying minister will be supposed to convey the true import of the narrative; and that a crime of dark dye, (having reference to the "young lady") has been committed, is a point which only minds congenial with that of the author will perceive.”