Hawthorne's Identity With And Criticism On Emerson's Transcendentalism

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the most outstanding American romanticists in the nineteenth century. His well-known novel The Scarlet Letter and exquisite fables has left deep impression on people and spread widely. Hawthorne's creation wasclosely related to the philosophical thought in his time------transcendentalism. On onehand, as displayed in some of his works the idea of self-examination, self-reliance, breaking the theological disciplines like the theory of destiny, and the widely used technique of symbolism embodied to some extent the connotation of transcendentalism; on the other hand, Hawthorne was not a transcendentalist and did not wholly embrace transcendentalism. He had quite opposite opinion with the transcendentalists over whether human nature is good or evil, and had different views on ways of communication between human and God. Even on self-reliance, Hawthorne was not as thorough as the transcendentalists. However, Hawthorne had a great deal to do with transcendentalism. Identity with transcendentalism showed the impact of transcendentalism, while criticism meant opposite stand against transcendentalism. In this way, we can conclude that Hawthorne was influenced by transcendentalism: he identified and accepted some ideas of transcendentalism, and at the same time negated and opposed others.The whole thesis includes five parts: the introduction, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three and the conclusion. The introduction briefly introduces the influence of Hawthorne and Emerson in the history of literature, and the relationship between them; then describes the current research situation in China, and explains the research purpose and research approach.Chapter one reveals Hawthorne's identity with transcendentalism by analyzing some of Hawthorne's works. It falls into two sections. Section one discusses the connection between "all beings bear spirits" and the technique of symbolism. Section two discusses the impact of self-reliance on Hawthorne's view of salvation.Chapter two demonstrates Hawthorne's criticism on transcendentalism with a number of examples. It also falls into two sections. Section one discusses Hawthorne's view of evil of human nature against Emerson's view of good of the human nature. Section two discusses Hawthorne's view that good and evil is inseparable and evil is the starting point of good. He satirized and negated Emerson's view that human can transcend by inspiration.Chapter three goes further to explore the reason why Hawthorne would identify...