This study shows similarities in the attitudes of and literary influences upon Maurice Maeterlinck and Nathaniel Hawthorne, especially in Maeterlinck's drama Pelleas et Melisande and Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. Circumstantial evidence indicates Maeterlinck's familiarity with Hawthorne's novel. Since no previous comparative study of Pelleas et Melisande and The Scarlet Letter exists, the works themselves are the major sources of information.

This thesis is a study of three of Hawthorne's long romances, The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and The Marble Faun, with particular attention to his use of phenomena having the appearance of the supernatural as a means of exemplifying the theme of his romances.

This dissertation attempts to demonstrate how Nathaniel Hawthorne's lifelong friendship with Franklin Pierce influenced the author's literary imagination, often prompting him to transform Pierce from his historical personage into a romanticized figure of notably Jacksonian qualities. It is also an assessment of how Hawthorne's friendship with Pierce profoundly influenced a wide range of his work, from his first novel, Fanshawe (1828), to the Life of Franklin Pierce (1852) and such later works as the unfinished Septimius romances and the dedicatory materials in Our Old Home (1863). This dissertation shows how Pierce became for Hawthorne a literary device—an icon of Jacksonian virtue, a token of the Democratic party, and an emblem of steadfastness, military heroism, and integrity, all three of which were often at odds with Pierce's historical character. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the Hawthorne-Pierce friendship. The chapter also assesses biographical reconstructions of Pierce's character and life. Chapter 2 addresses Hawthorne's years at Bowdoin College, his introduction to Pierce, and his early socialization. Chapter 3 demonstrates how Hawthorne transformed his Bowdoin experience into formulaic Gothic narrative in his first novel, Fanshawe. Chapter 4 discusses the influence of the Hawthorne-Pierce friendship on the Life of Franklin Pierce, Hawthorne's campaign biography of his friend. The friendship, the chapter concludes, was not only a context, or backdrop to the work, but it was also a factor that affected the text significantly. Chapter 5 treats the influence of Hawthorne's camaraderie with Pierce on the author's later works, the Septimius romances and the dedicatory materials in Our Old Home. Chapter 6 illustrates how Hawthorne's continuing friendship with the controversial Pierce distanced him from many of the prominent and influential thinkers and writers of the day, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. Chapter 7 offers a final summation of the influence of Pierce on Hawthorne's art and Hawthorne's often tenuous role as political artist. Finally, the chapter shows how an understanding of Hawthorne's relationship with Pierce enhances our perceptions of Hawthorne as writer.

The purpose of this thesis is to establish a foundation built on the congruencies between Margaret Fuller’s feminist theory and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fiction, with the aim of addressing two major points: first, the implications of universalizing gender in the context of identity politics; and second, to show how gender universality is challenged within Hawthorne’s fiction and Fuller’s prose. Given that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s characters depict a range of personal variability, the act of synthesizing Margaret Fuller’s feminist theory with Hawthorne’s fiction functions to link the personal with the political. The overall goal of this study is to substantiate both writers within a feminist discourse and further, as contributory in the fight for gender equality.

Through a close study of Hawthorne's four major romances--The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun-—this thesis singles out all significant references to apparel or accessories and evaluates the use he makes of them.

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This thesis is a study of the four long romances, The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun, with emphasis upon Hawthorne's use of symbolism as a means of presenting the basic moral and spiritual truths of human life. The first chapter explains the nature of symbolism and the reasons why Hawthorne used it so extensively. In each of the last four chapters, the symbolism in a single romance is considered for the purpose of discovering the manner and effectiveness of its use in exemplifying the central theme of that particular story. Although Hawthorne's short stories are extremely rich in symbolism, it was not possible to include them in the present study.

Due to its emphasis on the concepts of self-reliance, inner guidance and the aboriginal Self, Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy elaborates theses that favor the individual over community, such as the superiority and sanctity of self-definition, as opposed to definitions constructed by society and imposed on the individual. It is possible, then, to perceive his philosophy as important for the formation of the Women's Rights Movement and for the emerging feminism. In his four romances, Nathaniel Hawthorne creates female protagonists who advocate for women's right to self-reliance as Emerson describes it. Hawthorne's heroines can be understood and interpreted as contemplating the Emersonian principles, thus illustrating the connection between Emerson's philosophy, and themes and motifs present in Hawthorne's romances. Related to Hawthorne's portrayal of the heroines' reflections on the concepts of inner guidance, the aboriginal Self, moral dereliction and self-reliance is Hawthorne's attitude toward the relationship between "womanhood" and "femininity" on one side, and "manhood" and "masculinity" on the other side. The ambivalence of woman, as depicted by Hawthorne, consists in the discrepancy between attributes traditionally associated with "femininity", such as devotion, affection and humility, and the will...

This thesis examines the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the archetypal images therein. The Scarlet Letter is discussed extensively with references made to The Blithedale Romance. Characters in the following short stories are referred to: “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Birthmark.” An overall analysis of feminine repression in both male and female characters is explored. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Pearl are the subjects of lengthy discussion. Journeys, both inward and outward are explored in the characters. The context is nineteenth-century culture of which Hawthorne is a product. The characters in The Scarlet Letter search for a complete existence, an integration of the unconscious and the conscious. Through a mythological study of Hawthorne’s work, we draw closer to understanding this complex example of nineteenth-century literature.

My dissertation, The Endless Roar in which We Live: The Figure of Noise in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Fiction is the first extended study that locates an intersection between sound studies and literary studies in order to examine noise as it defines spaces and places, and the characters that live and work in them, in American literature from the second half of the nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth century. I evaluate noise in a sampling of American fiction, and consider how the imagined sounds of fiction echo nineteenth-century soundscapes and underscore contemporary discernment of noises – and sometimes the lack of noises – in the national consciousness. I consider the street noise that the upper classes wished away, the factory noise that so many women workers spent a lifetime hearing, and the resounding noise of the United States’ expansion westward. Conversely, I also consider how authors and characters respond to the noises that penetrate their ears and create their soundscapes. Together, these considerations shape my argument that sounds help to construct and characterize localities, just as certain places construct particular sounds. Moreover, however, I argue that noise creates spaces wherein identities – such as those of gender, class, and ethnicity – also often tied to place, are discovered, defined, and challenged. In many ways, classifications of noise are subjective and varied, depending on who makes and who hears the noise, where and why the noise is produced, and how and by whom is the noise interpreted. Considering noise as malleable and interpretable based on context allows me to most effectively examine noise as a facilitator of identity formation.