Author : Henry James
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781520451176
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (511 download)
Book Synopsis The Scarlet Letter Followed by Hawthorne of Henry James by : Henry James
Download or read book The Scarlet Letter Followed by Hawthorne of Henry James written by Henry James and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Scarlet Letter": A Romance is an 1850 work of fiction in a historical setting, written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book is considered to be his "masterwork". Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guiltMost literary critics praised the book but religious leaders took issue with the novel's subject matter. Orestes Brownson complained that Hawthorne did not understand Christianity, confession, and remorse. A review in The Church Review and Ecclesiastical Register concluded the author "perpetrates bad morals."On the other hand, 20th-century writer D. H. Lawrence said that there could not be a more perfect work of the American imagination than The Scarlet Letter. Henry James once said of the novel, "It is beautiful, admirable, extraordinary; it has in the highest degree that merit which I have spoken of as the mark of Hawthorne's best things--an indefinable purity and lightness of conception...One can often return to it; it supports familiarity and has the inexhaustible charm and mystery of great works of art.""Hawthorne" is a book of literary criticism by Henry James published in 1879. The book was an insightful study of James' great predecessor, Nathaniel Hawthorne. James gave extended consideration to each of Hawthorne's novels and a selection of his short stories. He also reviewed Hawthorne's life and some of his nonfiction. The book became somewhat controversial for a famous section where James enumerated the items of novelistic interest he thought were absent from American life.This is the only book-length study James wrote about a fellow novelist, and it is not surprising he picked Hawthorne for such extended treatment. The tradition Hawthorne began in American literature - the morally intense exploration of the universality of guilt and the ambiguities of human choice - was clearly carried on by James.Although James expressed misgivings about some of Hawthorne's more extravagant symbolism and heavy reliance on allegory, he shared his predecessor's constant interest in moral quandaries, divided loyalties, and the inevitable conflicts between imaginative protagonists and intractable reality. James also shared Hawthorne's passion for careful craftmanship and thorough, unsparing analysis of character.James' ranking of Hawthorne's novels, from The Scarlet Letter down to The Marble Faun, has generally been accepted by later critics. Although James, at least in his earlier work, was more of a consistent realist than Hawthorne, the later novelist's work always betrays the influence of his predecessor's tendency towards metaphorical expression. In James' final novels such as The Golden Bowl, this influence becomes even more pronounced in extended metaphor and complex symbolism.By and large James' book has enjoyed favorable reviews from later critics. They have usually recommended the book as one of permanent interest and still well worth reading. Critics have disagreed about how closely James followed Hawthorne's example, though there's general agreement that the influence was considerable, especially as James' fiction became more symbolic and dominated by psychological introspection.
