DOCSLIB.ORG

Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-1864 the Salem Witch Trials Began in 1692

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-1864 the Salem Witch Trials Began in 1692 • Was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts • William Hathorne, who emigrated from England in 1630, was the first of Hawthorne’s ancestors to arrive in the colonies • William’s son John Hathorne was one of the judges who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-1864 The Salem Witch Trials began in 1692. • It is believed that having learned about this, the Nathaniel added the “w” to his surname in his early twenties, shortly after graduating from college. • Hawthorne’s father, Nathaniel Hathorne, Sr., was a sea captain who died in 1808 of yellow fever, when Hawthorne was only four years old, in Raymond, Maine. • Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College at the expense of an uncle from 1821 to 1824, befriending classmates Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future president Franklin Pierce. • Hawthorne was hired in 1839 as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House. • He had become engaged in the previous year to the transcendentalist Sophia Peabody. • He joined the transcendentalist utopian community at Brook Farm in 1841. Sophia Peabody Brook Farm In 1846, Hawthorne was appointed surveyor (determining the quantity and value of imported goods) at the Salem Custom House. A Democrat, Hawthorne lost this job due to the change of administration in Washington after the presidential election of 1848 of Whig Zachary Taylor. Hawthorne’s career as a novelist gained notice with The Scarlet Letter in 1850, in which the preface refers to his three-year tenure in the Custom House at Salem. The Salem Custom House The Boston Custom House • Hawthorne wrote during the Romantic Period This literary period emphasized profound emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such experiences as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the beauty of nature • Much of Hawthorne’s work is set in colonial New England, and many of his short stories have been read as moral allegories influenced by his Puritan background • Nathaniel Hawthorne rented the Old Manse He and his new bride, transcendentalist Sophia Peabody, moved in as newlyweds and lived there for three years The Old Manse was built in 1770, in Concord, MA, by Rev. William Emerson, father of noted minister Rev. William Emerson and grandfather of famous transcendentalist writer and lecturer Ralph Waldo Emerson. Common themes and characteristics in Hawthorne’s works . Alienation - a character is in a state of isolation because of self- cause, or societal cause, or a combination of both. Initiation - involves the attempts of an alienated character to get rid of his isolated condition. Guilt - a character’s sense of guilt is forced by the Puritanical heritage or by society Pride - Hawthorne treats pride as evil; physical pride, spiritual pride (“Young Goodman Brown”), and intellectual pride (“Rappaccini’s Daughter”). Puritan New England - used as a background and setting in many tales Italian background (local color) - appears especially in The Marble Faun and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” Allegory - Hawthorne’s writing is allegorical, didactic, and moralistic Types of Conflict that appear in Hawthorne works - • Individual vs. society • Self-fulfillment vs. accommodation or frustration • Hypocrisy vs. integrity • Love vs. hate, exploitation vs. private suffering • Fate vs. free will The Scarlet Letter • Published in 1850 • Is a Gothic American romance novel and ALLEGORY • Set in Puritan New England (specifically Boston) in the seventeenth century • Is the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth after committing adultery to Pearl and refuses to name the father, Rev. Dimmesdale, and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity • Explores the issues of grace, legalism (an emphasis on conduct/discipline), and guilt A few critical words about Hawthorne . “There can be little doubt of Hawthorne’s disdain for the stern morality and rigidity of the Puritans, and he imagined his predecessors’ disdainful view of him: unsuccessful in their eyes, worthless and disgraceful. ‘A writer of story books!’” “But even as he disagrees with his ancestors’ viewpoint, he also feels an instinctual/innate connection to them and, more importantly, a ‘sense of place’ in Salem.” “Their blood remains in his veins, but their intolerance and lack of humanity becomes the subject of his disapproval in The Scarlet Letter.” Allusions in The Scarlet Letter . Anne Hutchinson, mentioned in Chapter 1, The Prison Door, was a religious dissenter (1591– 1643) Ann Hibbins, who historically was executed for witchcraft in Boston in 1656, is depicted in The Scarlet Letter as a witch who tries to tempt Prynne to the practice of witchcraft Richard Bellingham, who historically was the governor of Massachusetts and deputy governor at the time of Hibbins’s execution Martin Luther (1483–1545) and the Protestant Reformation in Germany Sir Thomas Overbury and Dr. Forman were the subjects of an adultery scandal in 1615 in England. Dr. Forman was charged with trying to poison his adulterous wife and her lover. Overbury was a friend of the lover and was perhaps poisoned John Winthrop (1588–1649), first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony King’s Chapel Burying Ground in Boston (mentioned in the final paragraph) Elizabeth Pain gravestone in Boston is traditionally considered an inspiration for the protagonist’s grave The story of King David and Bathsheba is depicted in the tapestry in Mr. Dimmesdale’s room (Chapter 9). (II Samuel 11-12) Pearl . “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” Matthew 13:45-46 The scaffold symbolizes the cruel public exposure of private sins and the means of redemption through public confession. Nature in The Scarlet Letter . • Is a kind of “character” in the world of The Scarlet Letter • Is often personified as listening, commenting on, and interacting with the characters in the novel • Separates the Puritan society of Boston from outside influences • The town is bordered on one side by a huge expanse of woods, home to Native Americans (the Wampanoag tribes) • The Atlantic Ocean creates a water feature boundary as well • Provides contrast to the austere ethos of Puritan society • From the beginning of this story, the narrator states that nature is “kind and generous,” contrasting heavily with the cold and strict ethos of Puritan society Principal Themes . Revenge Revenge is an unnatural act that twists a person’s soul into something evil. Not only does it alter a person’s basic personality, but it never satisfies Women and femininity Hester Prynne is willing to take on her own shame while protecting the male Compassion and Forgiveness In Christianity, grace and forgiveness are frequently contrasted with the law. A legalistic faith (such as the Puritan one) suggests that conformity to a strict set of rules Sin Sin is clearly a matter of great importance in the mid-17th century Puritan community of The Scarlet Letter Hypocrisy Hypocrisy is seen not only as a sin in The Scarlet Letter, but as a sin that leads to great personal injury (Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a religious figure, comes to embody hypocrisy and suffers emotionally and physically) Justice and Judgment The Massachusetts Bay Colony have a “finely tuned” sense of justice based on a partnership of religion and law Isolation Hester Prynne lives in isolation The Supernatural The devil’s presence, meteors in the shape of an “A,” witches, etc. Fate and Free Will Each person’s life follows a specific and set path. (Puritans believed in Divine Providence and the Doctrine of the Elect) Guilt and Blame Guilt and blame weave in and out of the hearts of the characters that inhabit the society of The Scarlet Letter Major symbols in The Scarlet Letter . •The letter “A” Gold thread around the letter “A” •The letter “A” on Dimmesdale’s chest •Scaffold •Prison •The color red/scarlet •Day/night •Woods •Rosebush •Character names: Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, Pearl •Meteor •Sunshine/light/truth •Shadow •Black man in the forest Puritanism . • United devotion to Christianity is essential • Government will address both civil and religious matters (theocracy) • The good of the public is greater than the good of the individual • Service to the Lord improves lives • If you break the bond with community or God, you will suffer God’s wrath Here are some ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS for you to think about as you begin your reading assignment . • How does the time in which one lives impact one’s beliefs and actions? • In what ways does society use stigmas in order to deem what is socially acceptable? • Is sin a conflict with oneself, society, or God? Should there be punishment, and if so, by whom? • Can there be mitigating circumstances that exonerate a “sinner”? • Are women held to a different moral standard from men? • Does love “conquer all [obstacles]”? If yes, how so? If not, in what kinds of situations does it not? • How can obsession be an impediment to achieving happiness? • How does remaining true to oneself become essential in order to maintain one’s identity? • What happens when people’s desires conflict with society’s expectations? .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Hawthorne's Use of Mirror Symbolism in His Writings
    The Woman's College of The University of North Carolina LIBRARY CQ COLLEGE COLLECTION Gift of Jane './nicker lie lie tt KSLLSTT, JANS WHICKER. Hawthorne's Use of Mirror Symbolism in His Writings. (1968) Directed by Dr. Robert 0. Steohens. pp. 60 Ihroughout the course of Nathaniel Hawthorne's writin* one notes an extensive use of mirrors and other reflecting objects—brooks, lakes, fountains, pools, suits of armor, soao bubbles, the Duoils of oeople's eyes, and others. Surprisingly enough, few scholars and critics have had much to say about this slgnigiCRnt mirror symbolism; perhaps Hawthorne succeeded so well In concealing; these images that they exoress meaning without directing attention to their Dresence. Nevertheless, they are very much in evidence and for a very definite purpose. Hawthorne, whose works cover the problem of moral growth in man, was attempting to show mankind that only through an intense self-lntrosoectlon and self-examination of the interior of his Innermost bein°:—his heart—would he be able to live in an external world which often apoeared unintelligible to him; and through the utiliza- tion of mirror images., Hawthorne could often reveal truths hidden from the outer eyes of man. Hawthorne's Interest in mirrors is manifest from his earliest attempts in writing; indeed, he spoke of his imaerination as a mirror—it could reflect the fantasies from his haunted mind or the creations from his own heart. More Importantly, the mirror came to be for Hawthorne a kind of "magic" looking glass in which he could deoict settings, portray character, emphasize iraoortant moments, lend an air of the mysterious and the suoernatural, and disclose the meaning beneath the surface.
    [Show full text]
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne's “Young Goodman Brown”: a Psychoanalytic
    Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”: A Psychoanalytic Reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “Young Goodman Brown” describes the maturation of its protagonist, Goodman Brown. Through a dream vision, Brown confronts his forefathers, his wife, and authoritative members of his town, and by the end of the story he has established his place in the community as an adult. The events of the dream vision are Brown’s “errand” to a witches’ Sabbath in “the heart of the dark wilderness” and his refusal to take communion from the devil. The psychological significance of the dream vision is less obvious: Through his journey, Brown becomes an adult in his community; though uninitiated at the Sabbath, he is fully initiated socially. This initiation results in a frozen emotional state as the “young” Goodman Brown becomes, overnight, an old and gloomy Goodman Brown, without hope through the end of his days. Ultimately “Young Goodman Brown” can be seen as Hawthorne reaching his own critical understanding of his Puritan ancestors. The conflict that Brown suffers during his journey in the woods is shown to be internal through the number of details that are projections of his unconscious. The devil’s arguments “seemed rather to spring from up in the bosom of his auditor”—that is, Brown himself. When “the echoes of the forest mocked him,” Brown is projecting his emotional state onto the forest. The further Brown sinks into despair, the clearer it becomes that what he sees and hears is to a large extent the product of his fancy. “Once [Brown] fancied that he could distinguish the accents of townspeople of his own,” but “the next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught” until “then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones.” Ultimately Brown himself is the “chief horror of the scene” created by his own mind in conflict.
    [Show full text]
  • The Scarlet Letter
    THE SCARLET LETTER Nathaniel Hawthorne WHO WAS NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE? 1804-1864 Born in Salem, Massachusetts only child father died in 1804, while at sea he and his mother moved in with wealthy uncles leg injury kept Nathaniel down for several months, during this time he read as much as possible and decided to become a writer 1821-1825 – attended Bowdoin College met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Franklin Pierce (14th President) not a great student WHO WAS NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE? Early ancestor, William Hathorne, first came to America in 1630, settled in Salem, Massachusetts, was a judge known for harsh judgements William’s son John, Hathorne was one of the three judges during the Salem Witch Trials in the 1690s Nathaniel added a “w” to his last name to distance himself from that side of the family WHO WAS NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE? Met Sophia Peabody a painter illustrator transcendentalist Spent time at Brook Farm community met Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau Married Sophia on July 9, 1842 Settled in Concord, Massachusetts 3 Children SETTING Books are like boats on a river… We must look at two parts of the river when learning about the setting of the book. Where the author lives or lived on the river. Where the book takes place along the river. SETTING Transcendentalism was a philosophical movement that was developing by the late 1820s and '30s in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality. The doctrine of the Unitarian church as taught at Harvard Divinity School was of particular concern.
    [Show full text]
  • The Scarlet Letter Summer Reading Questions
    THE SCARLET LETTER SUMMER READING QUESTIONS Complete the following questions in order as you read. Questions should not be rewritten. Answers do not have to be in complete sentences. Answers will be due on the first day of class. The purpose of these questions is to help keep you focused on your reading and to prepare you for the test over this text. Answers will be graded. The Scarlet Letter “The Custom-House” This introductory section describes the conditions that led the narrator to write The Scarlet Letter. The narrator, a young man, works in the Boston custom-house, a building that housed government officials in charge of documenting the import and export of goods into and out of the country and taxing those goods. The narrator’s co-workers are mostly old men with whom he has very little in common. One day, the narrator finds a red letter “A” and a manuscript by Jonathan Pue, a former employee of the custom- house, in a stack of old papers. The manuscript is the history of Hester Prynne, and the narrator believes that Pue’s ghost is speaking to him through the ages, exhorting him to write Hester’s story. While working at the custom-house, the narrator finds it difficult to write. However, after losing his job when a new president is elected, the narrator is able to settle down and write his tale. Chapters 1 & 2: “The Prison-Door” and “The Market-Place” 1. What are two of the first things that are built in a new colony? 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond the American Landscape: Tourism and the Significance of Hawthorne’S Travel Sketches
    The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 27 (2016) Copyright © 2016 Toshikazu Masunaga. All rights reserved. This work may be used, with this notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author. Beyond the American Landscape: Tourism and the Significance of Hawthorne’s Travel Sketches Toshikazu MASUNAGA* INTRODUCTION: 1832 After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1825, Nathaniel Hawthorne went back to his hometown, Salem, Massachusetts, where he concentrated on writing in order to become a professional writer. His early masterpieces such as “Young Goodman Brown” and “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” were written during the so-called solitary years from 1825 to 1837, and he viewed those Salem years of his literary apprenticeship as “a form of limbo, a long and weary imprisonment” (Mellow 36). But biographers of Hawthorne point out that this self-portrait of a solitary genius was partly invented by his “self-dramatizations” (E. H. Miller 87) to romanticize his younger days. In fact, he maintained social engagements, and his sister Elizabeth testified that “he was always social” (Stewart 38). He was more active and outgoing than his own fabricated self-image, and he even made several trips with his uncle Samuel Manning as well as by himself.1 While strenuously writing tales, he undertook an American grand tour alone, traveling around New England and upstate New York in 1832. He was one of those tourists who rushed to major tourist destinations of the day such as the Hudson Valley, Niagara Falls, and the White Mountains in order *Professor, Kwansei Gakuin University 1 2 TOSHIKAZU MASUNAGA to spend leisure time and to find cultural significance in the scenic beauty of the American natural landscape.
    [Show full text]
  • F, Sr.Auifuvi
    NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE' S USE OF WITCH AND DEVIL LORE APPROVED: Major Professor Consulting Professor Iinor Professor f, sr. auifUvi Chairman of" the Department of English Dean of the Graduate School Robb, Kathleen A., Nathaniel Hawthorne;s Fictional Use of Witch and Devil Lore. Master of Arts (English), December, - v 1970, 119 pp., bibliography, 19 titles. Nathaniel Hawthorne's personal family history, his boy- hood in the Salem area of New England, and his reading of works about New England's Puritan era influenced his choice of witch and Devil lore as fictional material. The witch- ci"aft trials in Salem were evidence (in Hawthorne's inter- pretation) of the errors of judgment and popular belief which are ever-present in the human race. He considered the witch and Devil doctrine of the seventeenth century to be indicative of the superstition, fear, and hatred which governs the lives of men even in later centuries. From the excesses of the witch-hunt period of New England history Hawthorne felt moral lessons could be derived. The historical background of witch and Devil lore, while helpful in illustrating moral lessons, is used by Hawthorne to accomplish other purposes. The paraphernalia of witchcraft with its emphasis on terrible and awesome ceremonies or practices such as Black Sabbaths, Devil compacts, image-magic, spells and curses, the Black Man in'the forest, spectral shapes, and familiar spirits is used by Hawthorne to add atmospheric qualities to his fiction. Use of the diabolic creates the effects of horror, suspense, and mystery. Furthermore, such 2 elements of witch and Devil doctrine (when introduced in The Scarlet Letter, short stories, and historical sketches) also provide an aura of historical authenticity, thus adding a v dimension of reality and concreteness to the author's fiction.
    [Show full text]
  • The Birth-Mark Hawthorne, Nathaniel
    The Birth-Mark Hawthorne, Nathaniel Published: 1843 Type(s): Short Fiction Source: http://gutenberg.org 1 About Hawthorne: Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachu- setts, where his birthplace is now a museum. William Hathorne, who emigrated from England in 1630, was the first of Hawthorne's ancestors to arrive in the colonies. After arriving, William persecuted Quakers. William's son John Hathorne was one of the judges who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials. (One theory is that having learned about this, the au- thor added the "w" to his surname in his early twenties, shortly after graduating from college.) Hawthorne's father, Nathaniel Hathorne, Sr., was a sea captain who died in 1808 of yellow fever, when Hawthorne was only four years old, in Raymond, Maine. Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College at the expense of an uncle from 1821 to 1824, befriending classmates Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future president Franklin Pierce. While there he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Until the publication of his Twice-Told Tales in 1837, Hawthorne wrote in the comparative obscurity of what he called his "owl's nest" in the family home. As he looked back on this period of his life, he wrote: "I have not lived, but only dreamed about living." And yet it was this period of brooding and writing that had formed, as Malcolm Cowley was to describe it, "the central fact in Hawthorne's career," his "term of apprenticeship" that would eventually result in the "richly med- itated fiction." Hawthorne was hired in 1839 as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House.
    [Show full text]
  • The Birth-Mark Hawthorne, Nathaniel
    The Birth-Mark Hawthorne, Nathaniel Published: 1843 Type(s): Short Fiction Source: http://gutenberg.org 1 About Hawthorne: Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachu- setts, where his birthplace is now a museum. William Hathorne, who emigrated from England in 1630, was the first of Hawthorne's ancestors to arrive in the colonies. After arriving, William persecuted Quakers. William's son John Hathorne was one of the judges who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials. (One theory is that having learned about this, the au- thor added the "w" to his surname in his early twenties, shortly after graduating from college.) Hawthorne's father, Nathaniel Hathorne, Sr., was a sea captain who died in 1808 of yellow fever, when Hawthorne was only four years old, in Raymond, Maine. Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College at the expense of an uncle from 1821 to 1824, befriending classmates Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future president Franklin Pierce. While there he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Until the publication of his Twice-Told Tales in 1837, Hawthorne wrote in the comparative obscurity of what he called his "owl's nest" in the family home. As he looked back on this period of his life, he wrote: "I have not lived, but only dreamed about living." And yet it was this period of brooding and writing that had formed, as Malcolm Cowley was to describe it, "the central fact in Hawthorne's career," his "term of apprenticeship" that would eventually result in the "richly med- itated fiction." Hawthorne was hired in 1839 as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House.
    [Show full text]
  • Chelliah.Pdf
    Merit Research Journal of Agricultural Science and Soil Sciences (ISSN: 2350 -2274) Vol. 5(11) pp. 116 -121, November, 2017 Available online http://meritresearchjournals.org/asss/index.htm Copyright © 2017 Merit Research Journals Review The Fictional Forte and L iterary Achievement of Nathaniel Hawthorne with a Focus on Spiritual Development through Sin and Suffering as Pictured in His Marble Faun: A Brief Analysis Dr. S. Chelliah, M. A., Ph.D Abstract Professor, Head and Chairperson, This paper is an attempt to examine the fictional art and forte of Natheniel School of English and Foreign Hawthorne with a special focus on his literary achievement and also languages and School of Indian spiritu al development attained through experience of sin, guilt and Languages, Department of English sufferings, by projecting him not only as an American novelist and short – and Comparative Literature, Madurai story writer but also a new England Puritan disapproving severe and harsh Kamaraj University MADURAI-21(TN)- India codes of the Puritan morality and a psychologi st delving deep into the study of human nature. It studies and reveals how Hawthorne used fiction as a E-mail: [email protected] me dium for pursuing poetic truth; that is the truth of human heart and used Mob: 9442621106/ 7339129324 his novel especially as a tale of human frailty and sorrow by pouring all the passion of his sensitive and lonely heart into his fictional composition. It finally attests to the fact that the outraged suffering humanity must learn to live with the blackness that lies everywhere beneath us. Key words: Fictional forte, curious coinci dence, spiritual development, sin, guilt, human suffering, Puritan morality, poetic truth, sensitive heart.
    [Show full text]
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Meiosis of Americanism in the Marble Faun
    Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism Volume 7 Issue 1 Article 15 2014 Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Meiosis of Americanism in The Marble Faun Rasoul Aliakbari Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Aliakbari, Rasoul (2014) "Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Meiosis of Americanism in The Marble Faun," Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 15. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion/vol7/iss1/15 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Meiosis of Americanism in The Marble Faun Rasoul Aliakbari Such genres as popular movies and video games often contain images of American superiority but this imagery, it should be noted, has not developed overnight; rather, it has its roots in the history of literary representation. To throw some light on this background, this paper emphasizes political reading of literary texts. In particular, I aim to provide a political response to a poetic dilemma that The Marble Faun (1860) features. In the preface to The Marble Faun, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) professes his intention to set his new novel in Italy, which he views as the proper land for Romance, “as a sort of poetic or faery precinct” (viii). The American novelist downplays his native land as inappropriate for his narrative, as it possesses “no shadow, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a commonplace prosperity” (viii).
    [Show full text]
  • Cotton Mathers's Wonders of the Invisible World: an Authoritative Edition
    Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 1-12-2005 Cotton Mathers's Wonders of the Invisible World: An Authoritative Edition Paul Melvin Wise Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Wise, Paul Melvin, "Cotton Mathers's Wonders of the Invisible World: An Authoritative Edition." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2005. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/5 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COTTON MATHER’S WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD: AN AUTHORITATIVE EDITION by PAUL M. WISE Under the direction of Reiner Smolinski ABSTRACT In Wonders of the Invisible World, Cotton Mather applies both his views on witchcraft and his millennial calculations to events at Salem in 1692. Although this infamous treatise served as the official chronicle and apologia of the 1692 witch trials, and excerpts from Wonders of the Invisible World are widely anthologized, no annotated critical edition of the entire work has appeared since the nineteenth century. This present edition seeks to remedy this lacuna in modern scholarship, presenting Mather’s seventeenth-century text next to an integrated theory of the natural causes of the Salem witch panic. The likely causes of Salem’s bewitchment, viewed alongside Mather’s implausible explanations, expose his disingenuousness in writing about Salem. Chapter one of my introduction posits the probability that a group of conspirators, led by the Rev.
    [Show full text]
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Biography
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Biography http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/henry_wadsworth_longfel... HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, whom Griswold describes as the greatest American poet, was born at Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807, and he died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 24, 1882. His father was of Puritan stock, and a lawyer by profession. He possessed the necessary wealth to give his children school opportunities. At the age of fourteen young Longfellow was sent to Bowdoin College, where he graduated at eighteen. He was a close student, as shown by the testimony of his classmate, the talented Nathaniel Hawthorne, also by the recollections of Mr. Packard, one of his teachers. These glimpses that we catch of the boy reveal a modest, refined, manly youth, devoted to study, of great personal charm, and gentle manners. It is the boy that the older man suggested. To look back upon him is to trace the broad and clear and beautiful river far up the green meadows to the limpid rill. His poetic taste and faculty were already Enlarge Picture apparent, and it is related that a version of an ode of Horace which he wrote in his Sophomore year so impressed one of the members of the examining board that when afterward a chair of modern languages was established in the college, he proposed as its incumbent the young Sophomore whose fluent verse he remembered. Before his name was suggested for the position of professor of modern languages at Bowdoin, he had studied law for a short time in his father's office. The position was gladly accepted, for the young poet seemed more at home in letters than in law.
    [Show full text]