The Real In Romance

Nathaniel Hawthorne(1860-1864),the undisputed classic writer in American literary history,is also the first classic writer recognized by the world.For this reason,Hawthorne's works always arouse common interest and heated debates among critics,especially in the 1950 s and 1960 s,when Richard Chase and his followers took Hawthorne as the key figure in American romance tradition.However,at the same time,because they laid too much emphasis on the abstract universality of literature texts,the in-depth interactive relations between Hawthorne's texts and the realistic social and historical context were ignored and left out,to some extent.As reaction to both Old historicism and Formalism,the New Historicist approach,emerging in the 1980 s,calls to “back to history ”,to probe the complex process of exchange,dialogue and negotiation between literary texts and various political and social texts in the specific historical context.Inspired by New Historicism,this dissertation goes beyond both the thematic explorations of human nature,religious morality,and psychological conflicts and formal studies of symbolism,allegory,and archetypes in Hawthorne's works.Instead,this dissertation takes contemporary consciousness as the main focal point and studies systematically the society and culture of Hawthorne's times.It expects to disclose that Hawthorne's New England trilogy by negotiating with the dominant rhetorics and intertexualizing the important historical incidents,not only attempted to construct the real of history,society,and reform but was also engaged in shaping the ideology of the age,thus being an active social force of history.Besides Introduction and Conclusion,this dissertation falls into four chapters.The Introduction includes a literature review of over 150-year Hawthorne studies both abroad and at home,a general introduction to New Historicism and its basic concepts.It also presents the methodology and the general structure of the dissertation.The first chapter conducts a genealogical study of the romance tradition of American literature from the perspective of New Historicism.Through the comprehensive inspection of both literary texts and cultural texts in the 19 th century,this chapter shows what constituted the real drive for Hawthorne and his contemporaries to put forward the concept of romance is to react against the confinement of rationality so as to establish the authority of imagination.When Hawthorne deplored the paucity of American romance materials,his real intention was not to inherit the tradition of medieval romance,but to carry on new literary experiment and initiate self-conscious literary creation.Yet,in this new literary practice,though the romancers escaped from the strict imitation of reality,their writings still remained true to history and society.The second chapter mainly analyzes how Hawthorne shaped the consciousness of citizenship in The Scarlet Letter and thereby how the real of history was constructed.Confronted with the contemporary national myth of puritan origin,Hawthorne shaped both a disobedient civic individual and a civic society with order,sympathy,and ethics.Therefore,based on the civic consciousness,Hawthorne explored the real of history beyond two hundred years and bridged over the puritan society in the 17 th century and the democratic society in the 19 th centuryThe third chapter mainly analyzes how Hawthorne shaped the consciousness of history in the The House of Seven Gables and how he attempted to construct the real in society.By critiquing both the historical consciousness of adhering to old forms and conventions and that of abandoning history and taking up radical reform,Hawthorne shaped the evolutionary historical consciousness.In this shaping process,Hawthorne responded to the real of society in which most of people were at a loss at the historical changes.The fourth chapter mainly analyzes how Hawthorne traced the disillusion of the ideology of Utopia in The Blithedale Romance and how he tried to construct the essential truth of reform.Through exploring the disillusion of feminist utopia,transcendental utopia,erotic utopia as well as pastoral utopia,Hawthorne made a comprehensive dialogue with contemporary main social reforms and thus gave a full play to the contradictions and defects of various utopian ideals.On the other hand,he also reproduced a disillusion process from romantic idealism to social realism in the era of passionate reform,which contributes to presenting the real of social reform in the 19 th century.According to the New Histoicist approach to Hawthorne's New England trilogy,the dissertation concludes that Hawthorne by focusing on the ideas and views of his contemporaries,on the one hand,explored the real of history,revealed the changes of times,and responded to various reforms in his times.On the other hand,based on the historical and social reality,his works in turn shaped the contemporary consciousness of citizen and history and traced the illusion of Utopia.Therefore,this dissertation finally argues that Hawthorne never turns their mind away from society and the reality he constructed was never tangential to his society.Instead,he just took a highly masterful form of art to rebuild the relationship between the past and the present,the ideal and the real,the individual and the state as well as traditions and changes in America.