... 's dream vision or his spectral adventure in the forest, he has received a paralyzing sense that the brotherhood and unity of man is only reachable through the fatherhood of the devil. Terence Martin sums up the meaning of Hawthorne's best known book, The Scarlet Letter in three sentences: "Taking its form in Hawthorne's imagination, the total context of The Scarlet Letter inheres in the letter itself. Invented by the community to serve as an unequivocal emblem ... of penance, the letter has frozen Hester into a posture of ... ...

• Word Count: 855
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... a new element of religious and social intolerance to America, expanding on the blueprint created by the Pilgrims. Known for their strict, repressive society, the Puritans barred all forms of deviation within their community, as described in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Set in the mid-1600s, The Scarlet Letter epitomizes the religious intolerance of Puritan society. By the mid-1800s, however, the religious fervor that had been so prevalent two centuries ago was ... gone, replaced by the ideals of Transcendentalism. Henry David Thoreau helped to propel this movement, expressi...

• Word Count: 789
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... -centered Transcendentalist movement, led by Ralph Waldo Emerson, was an important force in New England intellectual circles. The Transcendentalists believed that human existence transcended the sensory realm, and rejected formalism in favor of individual responsibility. The Scarlet Letter shows some Transcendentalist influence, including a belief in individual choice and consequence, and an emphasis on symbolism. ... was a protest against slavery and against the Mexican War, which Thoreau and other abolitionists regarded as a means to expand the slave territory. Hawthorne also wrote ma...

• Word Count: 913
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

American Renaissance Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," belongs to the period known as American romanticism, the period called, by F.O. Matthiessen, the American Renaissance. The American Renaissance took place roughly from 1840-1865, though the most significant work of this period was produced from 1850-1855. See F. O. Matthiessen's American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman, written in 1941. Matthiessen was influential in determining the canon of American ... work explores a variety of concerns central to the romantic movement. In reading Melville's ...

• Word Count: 917
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves (13) It was this speech that sparked a period of creative energy, producing some of the greatest works of all time. Such works include, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, ... Henry David Thoreau's Walden, the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Edgar Allan Poe's short stories (Hurley 13, 15). Each American romantic ... adopted his own style and theme. However, all were unified by a comm...

• Word Count: 319
• Approx Pages: 1