Nathaniel Hawthorne's Short Fiction

Next week, we are going to turn from Poe to Hawthorne -- beginning first with some of his short fiction, which Hawthorne referred to as "tales." Both were two of the leading lights of American Romanticism, and Poe wrote several reviews of Hawthorne's various compilation of tales, which he characterized as high art. Here's an except of Poe's review of Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales:

Of Mr. Hawthorne's Tales we would say, emphatically, that they belong to the highest region of Art--an Art subservient to genius of a very lofty order. We had supposed, with good reason for so supposing, that he had been thrust into his present position by one of the impudent cliques which beset our literature, and whose pretensions it is our full purpose to expose at the earliest opportunity; but we have been most agreeably mistaken. We know of few compositions which the critic can more honestly commend then these Twice-Told Tales. As Americans, we feel proud of the book.

You will be required to read three of Hawthorne's tales as listed below. I here include links to these in case you want to get a head start on reading over the weekend. If you have not already read "Young Goodman Brown" and "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," please do so in addition to the three tales below. You will need to be familiar with these before we read The Scarlet Letter, which I will distribute next week along with hardcopy of these three short stories:

The Minister's Black Veil
There's a new reverend in town, and he's wearing a black semi-transparent veil that obscures all of his face but his mouth and chin from view. This creates a stir among the townspeople, who begin to speculate about his veil and its meanings.

The Birth-Mark
Georgiana has a single hand-shaped birthmark on her cheek. Men are invariably attracted to her, and many find the birthmark attractive. However, her husband Aylmer, a scientist, begins to detest the birthmark more intensely with each passing day.
Ethan Brand
Ethan Brand has returned to town after a long absence. He's been off in search of the Unpardonable Sin, and he claims to have found it -- but not everyone believes him.

Atlantic Crossed in Three Days! -- By Balloon

click here to view the cartoon at readable size

This was the headline that appeared on the front page of the New York Sun on April 13, 1844. Written by journalist Edgar Allan Poe, the article -- unbeknownst to the Sun and its readers -- was wholly fabricated by Poe, a consummate hoaxer. The story later became known as the Great Balloon Hoax (read original article in full). Here's an article about the Hoax from Smithsonian:

On April 13, 1844 a broadside, or 'extra page,' appeared in the midday issue of the New York Sun (the same newspaper that ran the Great Moon Hoax back in 1835) announcing that the famous European balloonist Monck Mason had succeeded in flying across the Atlantic Ocean in 75 hours. If true, this would have been a remarkable achievement—the first time the Atlantic had ever been crossed in a balloon.

The balloon, named the Victoria, had apparently taken off from England on a trip to Paris, but had been blown off course due to a propeller accident and ended up floating across the Atlantic and landing on Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.

The story was quickly revealed to be a hoax, authored by Edgar Allan Poe. Monck, however, was a real person who had ballooned from London to Weilburg, Germany in 1836, a journey which he had described in 1837 in a book entitled Account of the Late Aeronautical Expedition from London to Weilburg.

On the day of the article's publication, Poe stood on the steps of the Sun's building in New York City telling crowds that his own story was a hoax. But apparently, amidst the general excitement, not many people paid attention to him.

He later wrote an account in the Columbia Spy of the scene following the publication of the balloon news: "On the morning (Saturday) of its announcement, the whole square surrounding the 'Sun' building was literally besieged, blocked up—ingress and egress being alike impossible, from a period soon after sunrise until about two o'clock P.M.... I never witnessed more intense excitement to get possession of a newspaper. As soon as the few first copies made their way into the streets, they were bought up, at almost any price, from the news-boys, who made a profitable speculation beyond doubt. I saw a half-dollar given, in one instance, for a single paper, and a shilling was a frequent price. I tried, in vain, during the whole day, to get possession of a copy."

Sassaman, Richard. "The Tell-Tale Hoax." Smithsonian 1993 8(3): 80-89.

Poe's Philosophy of Composition

Edgar Allan Poe wrote an essay on the creation of "The Raven," entitled "The Philosophy of Composition." In that essay Poe describes the work of composing the poem as if it were a mathematical problem, and derides the poets that claim that they compose "by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes." Whether Poe was as calculating as he claims when he wrote "The Raven" or not is a question that cannot be answered; it is, however, unlikely that he created it exactly like he described in his essay. The thoughts occurring in the essay might well have occurred to Poe while he was composing it.

In "The Philosophy of Composition," Poe stresses the need to express a single effect when the literary work is to be read in one sitting. A poem should always be written short enough to be read in one sitting, and should, therefore, strive to achieve this single, unique effect. Consequently, Poe figured that the length of a poem should stay around one hundred lines, and "The Raven" is 108 lines.

The most important thing to consider in "Philosophy" is the fact that "The Raven," as well as many of Poe's tales, is written backwards. The effect is determined first, and the whole plot is set; then the web grows backwards from that single effect. Poe's "tales of ratiocination," e.g. the Dupin tales, are written in the same manner. "Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its denouement before anything be attempted with the pen" (Poe, 1850).

It was important to Poe to make "The Raven" "universally appreciable." It should be appreciated by the public, as well as the critics. Poe chose Beauty to be the theme of the poem, since "Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem" (Poe, 1850). After choosing Beauty as the province, Poe considered sadness to be the highest manifestation of beauty. "Beauty of whatever kind in its supreme development invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones" (Poe, 1850).

Of all melancholy topics, Poe wanted to use the one that was universally understood, and therefore, he chose Death as his topic. Poe (along with other writers) believed that the death of a beautiful woman was the most poetical use of death, because it closely allies itself with Beauty.

After establishing subjects and tones of the poem, Poe started by writing the stanza that brought the narrator's "interrogation" of the raven to a climax, the third verse from the end, and he made sure that no preceding stanza would "surpass this in rhythmical effect." Poe then worked backwards from this stanza and used the word "Nevermore" in many different ways, so that even with the repetition of this word, it would not prove to be monotonous.

Poe builds the tension in this poem up, stanza by stanza, but after the climaxing stanza he tears the whole thing down, and lets the narrator know that there is no meaning in searching for a moral in the raven's "nevermore". The Raven is established as a symbol for the narrator's "Mournful and never-ending remembrance." "And my soul from out that shadow, that lies floating on the floor, shall be lifted - nevermore!"