HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL. – American novelist, born in Salem (Indiana) on 4 July 1804, died in Plymouth (New Hampshire) on 19 May 1864. He began his journalistic career in 1863.
The following year H. revealed himself as a narrator particularly gifted in the psychological exploration of his characters, in the Twice-Told Tales (1837). As a customs inspector he was in Boston (1843) and in Salem (1846), finally settling in Massachusetts in an isolated cabin. His two great novels are associated with this period and setting: The scarlet letter (1850) and The house of the seven gables (1851). During his final years he was in England as a consul, and in Italy.
In the novels, as in the stories, a tragic, bitterly pessimistic world is recreated with simplicity of means through a broad style, rich in nuances and musical cadences. In The scarlet letter, which may be regarded as his most mature work, psychological analysis expands to encompass the entire environment, that of the first Puritan community in America in the mid-seventeenth century. The novel fully develops the austere vision H. held of the problem of evil and guilt, whose conception and resolution reveal the author’s Protestant upbringing.
Giulio de Angelis