Realism vs. Romanticism in Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown Essays

Nathaniel Hawthornes classic tale Young Goodman Brown is a good lesson of a short story embodying both characteristics of realism and characteristics of romanticism. M. H. Abrams defines romantic themes in prominent authors of this school in the late eighteenth and early 19th centuries as being five in number (1) innovations in the materials, forms and direction (2) that the work involve a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings (3) that international nature be a persistent subject with a esthetic nuance and accuracy in its description (4) that the proofreader be invited to signalise the protagonist with the author himself and (5) that this be an age of new beginnings and high possibilities for the soulfulness (177-79). Let us examine Young Goodman Brown in lightly of the above. First of all, Hawthorne was a real innovator in his use of the psychological approach to characters within a story. A. N. Kaul considers Hawthorne preeminently a psychological writer burrowing , to his ut around ability, into the depths of our common nature, for the purposes of psychological romance. . . . (2). Q. D. Leavis says Hawthorne has imaginatively recreated for the reader that Calvinist virtuoso of sin. . . . But in Hawthorne, by a wonderful feat of transmutation, it has no religious significance, it is as a psychological state that it is explored (37). The reader experiences most of the story through the eyes and feelings of the protagonist, Goodman. In the following passage the reader is allowed, as is typical, to read his thoughts Poor little Faith thought he, for his rawness smote him. What a wretch am I, to leave her on such an errand She negotiation of dreams, too. Methought, as she spoke, there was troubl... ... Swisher. San Diego, CA Greenhaven Press, 1996. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. 1835. http//www.cwrl.utexas.edu/daniel/amlit/goodman/goodmantext.html James, Henry. Hawthorne. http//eldred.ne.mediaone.net/nh/nhhj1.html Kaul, A.N. In troduction. In Hawthorne A array of Critical Essays, alter by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. Leavis, Q.D. Hawthorne as Poet. In Hawthorne A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Norton Anthology American Literature, edited by Baym et al. New York W.W. Norton and Co., 1995. Swisher, Clarice. Nathaniel Hawthorne a Biography. In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA Greenhaven Press, 1996.