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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 76-24,937 BLAND, Robert Lamar, 1940- THE ROLE OF FOLKLORE IN HAWTHORNE'S LITERARY NATIONALISM. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Ph.D., 1976 Literature, modern Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 © 1976 ROBERT LAMAR BLAND ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE RDLE OF FOLKLORE IN HAWTHORNE'S LITERARY NATIONALISM by Robert Lamar Bland A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 1976 Approved by Dissertation Adviser APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dissertation Adviser Committee Members / /fj /<3 Date of Acceptance by Committee ii BLAND, ROBERT LAMAR. The Role of Folklore in Hawthorne's Literary Nationalism. (1976) Directed by: Dr. Robert 0. Stephens. Pp. 217. Although Hawthorne's use of folklore material has been previously studied, no attempt has been made prior to this study to relate that usage to Hawthorne's attempt to establish himself as an American writer. The central contention of this study is that Hawthorne used folklore to establish himself as a literary nationalist, one who used indigenous resources to write literature peculiarly appropriate to the American culture. Hawthorne used seven types of folklore in his short fiction: legends, marchen, oral tradition, folkloric characters, folklore motifs, folkloric themes, and witchcraft and the supernatural. An examination of the changes which occur in the way these materials are used from 1825 to 1850 indicates that Hawthorne wrote primarily as a literary national­ ist until the publication of Twice-Told Tales. A survey of the milieu of literary nationalism during Hawthorne's time shows ten writers who probably affected Hawthorne's practice by using one or more of the same types of folklore in developing a native literature. They were James Kirlqe Paulding, William Cullen Bryant, John Neal, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, William Austin, John Greenleaf Whittier, Catherine M. Sedgwick, Sara Josepha Hale, and William Leete Stone. Hawthorne knew all of these writers either personally, by their literary reputation, or because, like him, they published in the New England Magazine, The Token, or the Democratic Review. In addition, several literary critics writing in the North American Review—William Tudor, J. G. Palfrey and W. C. Gardiner—were influential by encouraging American writers to use the American past in fiction. Using the evidence that Hawthorne changed his folklore usage in various ways during his apprenticeship and pointing out direct influences from literary nationalists where it is demonstrable, this study shows how Hawthorne struggled to identify himself as a nationalistic writer during the decade from the late 1820's to the late 1830's. There are two dimensions to his literary nationalism: (1) the use of folklore resources to implement, themes about the continuance of the nation's past into the present, (2) the attempt to show the surface peculiarities of the nation's culture. The first dimension is most apparent in "Provincial Tales," his planned volume of stories from the late 1820's, which he was unable to publish, partially because it lacked the patriotic themes the decade favored. His next planned volume, "The Story Teller," gives evidence of a changed nationalistic intention, with Hawthorne concentrating on show­ ing the panoramic present of the American culture through the use of American scenery, character types, and folkloric narratives. Although each of the ten writers and several critics may have been influential in minor ways, the major influences came from Irving, Neal, Hale^and Paulding. Hawthorne achieved public recognition as a literary nationalist with Twice-Told Tales (1837 and 1842), where he offered a blend of the two nationalistic emphases in his earlier work. Thereafter his themes become less national, more universal, and his work shows less folklore usage. Twice in his later career, however, when he published The Snow Image and when he was writing Sept Indus Felton, Hawthorne returned to folklore resources, in apparent recognition they had served him well. Such resources influenced his romances. His use of legends and oral tradition helped shape his theory of romance, characters like Chillingworth and Westervelt show the influence of the wizard character type, and the folkloric theme of the influence of the past is evident until The House of the Seven Gables. Acknowledgments I wish to thank the members of my advisory committee, who are identified on the preceding page, for their comments which helped to improve this paper. Special thanks are due Robert 0. Stephens, with whom I discussed most of the ideas I express here. The staff at Jackson Library cheerfully secured materials which were not available to me in Greensboro. Linda Bland was supportive throughout my work: she cared enough to type several copies of the manuscript. Elon College in North Carolina provided generous financial aid to assist me in concluding this project. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page APPROVAL PAGE ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. HAWTHORNE'S USE OF FOLKLORE 4 Legends 8 Marchen 20 Oral Tradition 28 Folkloric Characters 33 Folklore Motifs 44 Folkloric Themes 50 Witchcraft and the Supernatural 58 III. FOLKLORE IN THE LITERARY NATIONALISM MILIEU /0 Nationalistic Criticism and Literature from 1815 to 1830. 75 James Kirke Paulding 79 William Cullen Bryant 89 John Neal 9 7 Washington Irving 104 James Fenimore Cooper Ill William Austin 117 Nationalistic Criticism and Literature . from 1830 to 1837. 120 John Greenleaf Whittier 125 Catherine M. Sedgwick 130 Sara Josepha Hale. 133 William L. Stone 137 The Token 140 Nationalistic Criticism and Literature After 1837. 144 IV. HAWTHORNE'S LITERARY NATIONALISM 149 "Seven Tales of Ify Native Land" 150 "Provincial Tales" 153 "The Story Teller" 165 Twice-Told Tales 174 iv CHAPTER Page Grandfather's Chair .... .183 Mosses From an Old Manse 184 "Old Time Legends" and The Snow Image 188 The Romances 191 V. CONCLUSION 200 BIBLIOGRAPHY 205 v 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A few short years after American independence had Been won, the question most troubling creative writers was how- to achieve literary independence from Europe. With their originality threat­ ened by the strong traditions of Gothicism and the sentimental „ romance from abroad, and with their own first efforts criticized or ridiculed by English writers and skeptics- at home, American writers searched for native material to create a national litera­ ture. Indigenous folklore was an invaluable resource they found, providing the best writers, including Nathaniel ITawthorne, with a means of achieving nationalism and greatness. Hawthorne is not commonly thought to have been active in the drive to write a national literature; most scholarship treats- him chiefly as the first American writer to explore man's interior motivations and conflicts. Yet a substantial amount of scholarship exists indicating Hawthorne's interest in American folklore, raising the question previously not discussed and central to this paper of the relationship between his interest in folklore and his desire to become known as an American writer, to write a literature using American resources. The folklore Hawthorne uses is of seven types, each of which is discussed at greater length in Chapter 2 of this paper: legends, marchen, oral tradition, folkloric characters-, folklore motifs, folkloric themes, and witchcraft and the supernatural. 2 By examining Hawthorne's use of this folklore throughout the period when he was struggling to become known to the American public, from 1825 to 1840 primarily, one finds evidence that he used folklore in an attempt to write a literature having national significance, in response to the calls of prominent critics and authors for a national literature. When one examines each type of folklore usage in chrono­ logical development, certain shifts in its function become apparent, indicating changes, adjustments,and new directions in Hawthorne's rationale for writing.