AMERICAN RENAISSANCE

NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE

• New England Brahmins
• The Transcendentalists
• Literary comedians
• Other important authors
 NEW ENGLAND BRAHMINS

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• Oliver Wendell Holmes
 THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS

• Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Henry David Thoreau

• Concord, Massachusetts
 LITERARY COMEDIANS

• Charles Farrar Browne, David Ross Locke, Charles Henry Smith,

Henry Wheeler Shaw, and Edgar Wilson Nye wrote, respectively,
as Artemus Ward, Petroleum V. (for Vesuvius) Nasby, Bill Arp, Josh
Billings, and Bill Nye
 NATHANIEL
HAWTHORNE
(1804-1864)
Scarlet letter
(1850)
“In the view of Infinite
Purity, we are sinners all
alike.”
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

• William Hathorne
• a magistrate who had sentenced a Quaker woman to public whipping
• William’s son John as one of three judges in the Salem witchcraft trials of
1692.
 WORKS
• The Scarlet Letter
• The Marble Faun
• The Celestial Railroad
• Roger Malvin’s Burial
• Twice-Told Tales
• Young Goodman Brown
• The House of the Seven Gables
• My Kinsman, Major Molineux
• Mosses from an Old Manse
• Doctor Heidegger’s Experiment
 THEMES

· Revenge
· Women and Femininity
· Compassion and Forgiveness
· Sin
· Hypocrisy
· Guilt and Blame
· Justice and Judgment
· Isolation
· The Supernatural
· Fate and Free Will
· Man and the Natural World
 IRONY
• Verbal
• Situational
• Dramatic

Vanity, it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for ceremonials of
pomp and state, the garments that had been wrought by her sinful hands.
 PEARL

• What do we learn about Pearl from her appearance?

• What do we learn about Pearl from the way she talks and the way she
acts?
• What do we learn about Pearl from what other people say or suggest
about her?
 PEARL

• How might Pearl’s childhood experiences affect her emotions

and her life choices once she leaves New England?
• What basic life skills will Pearl have to learn as a young woman?
• How likely is it that Pealr might take out her anger on people in
her new community? What antisocial actions might she take?
• What role could Pearl play in her new community – witch?
Religious leader who dispenses mercy or punishment? Recluse?
• If Pearl has a child, what if anything you think she will tell the
child about Hester and others?
 FILM/TV ADAPTATIONS
• The 1926 adaptation with early film star Lillian Gish gives
us some backstory on Hester and Dimmesdale's
relationship, they adapted it again in 1934.
• The 1979 TV miniseries production of The Scarlet Letter,
directed by Rick Hauser.
• A 1995 adaptation with Demi Moore and Gary Oldman.
• The 2010 film Easy A is very, very loosely based on The
Scarlet Letter.
FILM/TV ADAPTATIONS