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Hawthorne's Conception of History: a Study of the Author's Response to Alienation from God and Man

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Hawthorne's Conception of History: a Study of the Author's Response to Alienation from God and Man Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1979 Hawthorne's Conception of History: a Study of the Author's Response to Alienation From God and Man. Lloyd Moore Daigrepont Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Daigrepont, Lloyd Moore, "Hawthorne's Conception of History: a Study of the Author's Response to Alienation From God and Man." (1979). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3389. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3389 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. 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Requests can be made to our Dissertations Customer Services Department. 5. Some pages in any document may have indistinct print. In all cases we have filmed the best available copy. University Microfilms International 300 N. ZEEB ROAD, ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1 R 4EJ, ENGLAND 7927521 DAIGREPONT® LLOYD MOORE HAWTHORNE *S CONCEPTION OF HI STORYS A STUDY OF THE AUTHOR PS RESPONSE TO ALIENATION FROM GOD AND MAN . THE LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY AND AGRICULTURAL AMD MECHANICAL COL*® PH„D *® 1919 COPiU 1979 DAIGREPONT ® LLOYD MOORE @ 1979 LLOYD MOORE DAIGREPONT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED University Microfilms International 300 N. ZEEB ROAD. ANN ARBOR. Ml 48106 HAWTHORNE'S CONCEPTION OF HISTORY: A STUDY OF THE AUTHOR'S RESPONSE TO ALIENATION FROM GOD AND MAN A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Lloyd Moore Daigrepont B.A., Louisiana State University, 1970 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1972 August, 1979 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................ 1 Chapter I. LOSS OF FAITH AND C O M M U N I T Y ............... 8 II. THE CONCEPTION OF ALIENATION IN HAWTHORNE'S WRITINGS ....................... 91 III. DISCREDITING MODERNITY AND REOPENING THE S O U L .................................... 176 CONCLUSION.......................................... 273 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................... - .............. 278 ii ABSTRACT Hawthorne's response to the modern condition of man's alienation from God and from his fellow man (loss of faith and community) was to discredit modernity at its roots and to reaffirm what Eric Voegelin calls the "openness of the soul" to transcendent reality. Modern Western man's alienation from God and fellow man may be traced to the loss of medieval integration; in other words, loss of meaning and community is an effect of the Renaissance and Reformation development of rationalism, individualism, and materialism. These developments directly or indirectly caused Hawthorne to experience alienation from God and fellow man. The eighteenth century's emphasis upon reason had disrupted Puritan faith and by Hawthorne's time was causing its fragmentation into Unitarianism and Tran­ scendentalism, both of which Hawthorne regarded as species of non-faith. Hawthorne himself relied on reason rather than revelation in spiritual concerns and was plagued with doubts. The increased emphasis upon rationalism, individu­ alism, and materialism produced a society which was increas­ ingly fragmented, self-interested, and utilitarian (and hence skeptical of the uses of the imagination), a society in which Hawthorne felt isolated and from which (especially as an artist) he was estranged. Hawthorne, who admired the medieval world for its inte­ gration, understood the historical development of rational­ ism, individualism, and materialism, and he perceived each of these as a cause of modern man's alienation both from God and from his fellow man. He even saw that related develop­ ments such as the idea of progress, reformism, and utopian­ ism were also agents of modern man's alienation. He resisted reason and science, individualism, materialism, and related developments because of his conviction of man's need for spiritual meaning and genuine community. Ultimately, Hawthorne's perception of the sources of alienation was the foundation of a conception of history which provides modern man with a means of being reunited with God (transcendent truth) and with fellow man. First, Hawthorne's conception of history opposes the general employment of history as a rationale for modernity's move­ ment away from the spiritual and social unity of medieval life— as a justification for its commitment to rationalism, individualism, and materialism. Emphasizing man's tendency toward sin and failure throughout time, Hawthorne's histor­ ical writings discredit the increasingly widespread mode of historical thinking which Voegelin calls "gnosticism," the notion that through knowledge the idea of progress toward some standard of human perfection may be realized in secular history. iv Second, Hawthorne uses events from the past to affirm man's essential spirituality by revealing him as a creature compelled by the consciousness of his imperfection to seek transcendent truth. Man's imperfectibility— his insuperable tendency toward sin and failure— means that he must seek fulfillment through transcendence. For Hawthorne history affords examples affirming that man, in the consciousness of his essential imperfectibility, becomes a being with a soul, a being open to transcendent truth. Guilt, which man expe­ riences as a natural result of this consciousness, is for Hawthorne the ironic symbol of truth and of man's openness toward truth. Generally through the artistic treatment of events from the past confirming man's inescapable tendency toward sin and failure and his consequent experience of remorse, Hawthorne is concerned to reopen the soul of modern man to God or transcendent meaning and, by thus invoking him to view himself as an innately moral being, to foster sym­ pathy and justice and hence genuine community. Even though his doubts precluded firm religious convictions, Hawthorne, treating history symbolically and allegorically, affirmed transcendent truth by affirming the basic human experience of transcendence itself, and he affirmed the possibility of community by affirming man's potential, in his aspiration to higher truth, for placing sympathy and justice above self- interest. v INTRODUCTION The Lasting Loneliness of Nathaniel Hawthorne; Sources of Alienation in Modern Man (1965) by H. G. Fairbanks, the first full-length study of Hawthorne's response to alien­ ation, is a provocative and valuable book, which argues that "Hawthorne reflected the major dislocations of the nine­ teenth century: the breakdown of religion, the new relation of man to Nature, the problems of divisive individualism, the disintegration of traditional concepts of personality." Much of Hawthorne's writing, Fairbanks says, represents a quest for "a vision of encompassing totality which links God, Nature and Man organically. In spite of its considerable merits Fairbanks' study is limited in the treatment of its subject. The emphasis is far less upon Hawthorne's perception of the sources of mod­ ern man's alienation from God, Man, Self, and Nature, than it is upon Hawthorne's response to them. A more significant problem is that Fairbanks describes these sources in general terms, often overlooking their complexity and their histor­ ical interrelation as aspects of the general shift from the medieval to the modern world. Consider, for example, his J-The Lasting Loneliness of Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Study of the Sources of Alienation in Modern Man (Albany, N. Y . : Magi
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