The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni, also known by the British title Transformation, was the last of the four major romances by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and was published in 1860. The Marble Faun, written on the eve of the American Civil War, is set in a fantastical Italy. The romance mixes elements of a fable, pastoral, gothic novel, and travel guide.
This romance focuses on four main characters: Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, and Donatello.
Miriam is a beautiful painter with an unknown past. Throughout the novel, she is compared to many other women including Eve, Beatrice Cenci, Judith, and Cleopatra. Miriam is pursued by a mysterious, threatening man who is her “evil genius” through life. Hilda is an innocent copyist. She is compared to the Virgin Mary and the white dove. Her simple, unbendable moral principles can make her severe in spite of her tender heart. Miriam and Hilda are often contrasted.
Kenyon is a sculptor who represents rationalist humanism. He cherishes a romantic affection towards Hilda. Donatello, the Count of Monte Beni, is often compared to Adam and is in love with Miriam. Donatello amazingly resembles the marble Faun of Praxiteles, and the novel plays with the characters’ belief that the Count may be a descendant of the antique Faun. Hawthorne, however, withholds a definite statement even in the novel’s concluding chapters and postscript.
Composition and publication history
After writing The Blithedale Romance in 1852, Hawthorne, who was then approaching fifty, was granted a political appointment as American Consul in Liverpool, England, which he held from 1853 to 1857. In 1858, Hawthorne and his wife Sophia Peabody moved the family to Italy and became tourists for a year and a half. In early 1858, Hawthorne was inspired to write his romance when he saw the Faun of Praxiteles in the Palazzo Nuovo of the Capitoline Museum in Rome.
Hawthorne began the manuscript and intended to complete it at home, The Wayside, in Concord, Massachusetts. Instead, he returned to England, where he would remain until July 1860, and entirely rewrote the book.[1] On October 10, 1859, he wrote to his American publisher James T. Fields that his wife enjoyed what she had read thus far and "speaks of it very rapturously. If she liked the author less, I should feel much encouraged by her liking the Romance so much. I likewise (to confess the truth) admire it exceedingly, at intervals, but am liable to cold fits, during which I think it the most infernal nonsense."[2] Sophia wrote to her sister Elizabeth Peabody that her husband's reaction was typical: "As usual, he thinks the book good for nothing... He has regularly despised each one of his books immediately upon finishing it."[2]
Hawthorne struggled with a title for his new book. He considered several, including Monte Beni; or, The Faun: A Romance, The Romance of a Faun, Marble and Life; a Romance, Marble and Man; a Romance, and St. Hilda's Shrine.[3] The book was published simultaneously in America and England in late 1860; the title for the British edition was Transformation: Or the Romance of Monte Beni.[4] The alternate title was chosen by the publishers and was used against Hawthorne's wishes.[5] Both titles continue to be used today in the U.K. Encouraged to write a book long enough to fill three volumes, Hawthorne included extended descriptions that critics found distracting or boring.[6] Complaints about the ambiguous ending led Hawthorne to add a postscript to the second edition.[citation needed]
Critical response
Illustration featuring "Hilda and the doves", 1888
Ralph Waldo Emerson called the novel "mush"[7] but James Russell Lowell was pleased with it and praised it as a Christian parable.[6]Henry Wadsworth Longfellow privately wrote that it was a "wonderful book" but that it had "the old, dull pain in it that runs through all of Hawthorne's writings".[8] Reviews were generally favorable, though many were confused by the ending. William Dean Howells later wrote: "Everybody was reading it, and more or less bewailing its indefinite close, but yielding him that full honor and praise which a writer can hope for but once in his life."[9] Friend and critic Edwin Percy Whipple noted that, even if Hawthorne had written nothing else, The Marble Faun would qualify him as a master of English composition.[6]John Lothrop Motley wrote a long private letter to Hawthorne full of effusive praise:
With regard to the story, which has been slightly criticised, I can only say that to me it is quite satisfactory. I like those shadowy, weird, fantastic, Hawthornesque shapes flitting through the golden gloom which is the atmosphere of the book. I like the misty way in which the story is indicated rather than revealed. The outlines are quite definite enough, from the beginning to the end, to those who have imagination enough to follow you in your airy flights; and to those who complain, I suppose nothing less than an illustrated edition with a large gallows on the last page, with Donatello in the most pensive of attitudes, his ears revealed at last through a white nightcap, would be satisfactory.[10]
↑ Mather, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Modest Man. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1940: 305.
1 2 3 Wineapple, Brenda. Hawthorne: A Life. New York: Random House, 2003: 326. ISBN0-8129-7291-0.
↑ Miller, Edwin Haviland. Salem Is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991: 447. ISBN0-87745-332-2.
↑ Wineapple, Brenda. Hawthorne: A Life. New York: Random House, 2003: 319. ISBN0-8129-7291-0.
↑ McFarland, Philip. Hawthorne in Concord. New York: Grove Press, 2004: 210. ISBN0-8021-1776-7.
↑ Mather, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Modest Man. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1940: 307–308.
↑ S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 107.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion.
Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, also known as Mother Mary Alphonsa, was an American writer and religious leader. She was a Catholic religious sister, social worker, and foundress of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne.
Sophia Amelia Hawthorne was an American painter and illustrator as well as the wife of author Nathaniel Hawthorne. She also published her journals and various articles.
The House of the Seven Gables is a 1668 colonial mansion in Salem, Massachusetts, named for its gables. It was made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1851 novel The House of the Seven Gables. The house is now a non-profit museum, with an admission fee charged for tours, as well as an active settlement house with programs for the local immigrant community including ESL and citizenship classes. It was built for Captain John Turner and stayed with the family for three generations.
The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales is a collection of short stories by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Released in late 1851 with a copyright of 1852, it is the final collection of tales by Hawthorne published in his lifetime.
William Davis Ticknor I was an American publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and a founder of the publishing house Ticknor and Fields.
The Wayside is a historic house in Concord, Massachusetts. The earliest part of the home may date to 1717. Later it successively became the home of the young Louisa May Alcott and her family, who named it Hillside, author Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family, and children's writer Margaret Sidney. It became the first site with literary associations acquired by the National Park Service and is now open to the public as part of Minute Man National Historical Park.
Twice-Told Tales is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first volume was published in the spring of 1837 and the second in 1842. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence the name.
The Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthplace is the home where American author Nathaniel Hawthorne was born. The structure is located in Salem, Massachusetts, having been relocated to the grounds of the House of the Seven Gables and restored by the non-profit House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association. Admission is free to Salem residents year-round and to the general public during winter months; a fee is charged during summer months.
Julian Hawthorne was an American writer and journalist, the son of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody. He wrote numerous poems, novels, short stories, mysteries and detective fiction, essays, travel books, biographies, and histories.
The House of the Seven Gables: A Romance is a Gothic novel written beginning in mid-1850 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in April 1851 by Ticknor and Fields of Boston. The novel follows a New England family and their ancestral home. In the book, Hawthorne explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement, and colors the tale with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft. The setting for the book was inspired by the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, a gabled house in Salem, Massachusetts, belonging to Hawthorne's cousin Susanna Ingersoll, as well as ancestors of Hawthorne who had played a part in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The book was well received upon publication and later had a strong influence on the work of H. P. Lovecraft. The House of the Seven Gables has been adapted several times to film and television.
A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1851) is a children's book by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne in which he retells several Greek myths. It was followed by a sequel, Tanglewood Tales.
"The Ambitious Guest" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. First published in The New-England Magazine in June 1835, it was republished in the second volume of Twice-Told Tales in 1841.
"Roger Malvin's Burial" is a short story by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was first published anonymously in 1832 before its inclusion in the 1846 collection Mosses from an Old Manse. The tale concerns two fictional colonial survivors returning home after the historical battle known as Battle of Pequawket.
Ticknor and Fields was an American publishing company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded as a bookstore in 1832, the business would publish many 19th century American authors including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. It also became an early publisher of The Atlantic Monthly and North American Review.
The Resting Satyr or Leaning Satyr, also known as the Satyr anapauomenos is a statue type generally attributed to the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles. Some 115 examples of the type are known, of which the best known is in the Capitoline Museums.
The Token (1829–1842) was an annual, illustrated gift book, containing stories, poems and other light and entertaining reading. In 1833, it became The Token and Atlantic Souvenir.
"Chiefly About War Matters", originally credited "by a Peaceable Man", is an 1862 essay by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The essay was inspired by the author's traveling during the American Civil War to experience more of the firsthand. Upon its publication, it was controversial for its somewhat pro-southern stance and antiwar sentiments. Hawthorne was also chastised for his unflattering descriptions of American president Abraham Lincoln.
"Hawthorne and His Mosses" (1850) is an essay and critical review by Herman Melville of the short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1846. Published pseudonymously by "a Virginian spending July in Vermont", it appeared in The Literary World magazine in two issues: August 17 and August 24, 1850. It has been called the "most famous literary manifesto of the American nineteenth century."
"The Artist of the Beautiful" is a short story by the American writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story was first published in 1844 and was included two years later in the collection Mosses from an Old Manse published by Wiley & Putnam.
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