Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown and its Author Essay -- Young Goodman

Initially, of course, Nathaniel Hawthornes literary works went unranked among those of other American and British writers. But his story grew gradually even among contemporary critics, until he was recognized as a man of magnificence. Edgar Allen Poe, in a review of Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown, which had been compose 12 years prior, said in Godeys Ladys Book, November, 1847, no. 35, pp. 252-6 It was never the formulate (until lately) to speak of him in any summary of our best authors. . . . The peculiarity or sameness, or monotone of Hawthorne, would, in its mere character of peculiarity, and without reference to what is the peculiarity, dress to deprive him of all chance of popular appreciation. But at his unsuccessful person to be appreciated, we can, of course, no longer wonder, when we find him monotonous at in spades the worst of all possible points--at that point which, having the least concern with Nature, is the last removed from the popular intellect, from the pop ular sentiment and from the popular taste. I have-to doe with to the strain of allegory which completely overwhelms the greater number of his subjects. So literary critic Edgar Allan Poe thinks that Hawthornes heavy reliance on allegory is the shell of his lack of popularity during the 1830s and 40s. In 1848 James Russell Lowell wrote a forgather of poetry entitled Hawthorne for the periodical A Fable for Critics There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare That you hardly at first represent the strength that is there A frame so robust, with a reputation so sweeet, So earnest, so graceful, so lithe and so fleet, Is outlay a descent from Olympus to meet Tis as if a rough oak that for ages ha... ..... Yesterdays With Authors. 1871. http//eldred.ne.mediaone.net/nh/ywa3.html Hawthorne and His Mosses. The Norton Anthology American Literature, edited by Baym et al. rude(a) York W.W. Norton and Co., 1995. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Complete Short Stories of Nathani el Hawthorne. New York Doubleday and Co., Inc.,1959. James, Henry. Hawthorne. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1997. James, Henry. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nation, March 14, 1872. http//eldred.ne.mediaone.net/nh/hjnat.html Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Hawthorne- 1804-1864. 1864. http//eldred.ne.mediaone.net/nh/nhlong.html Lowell, James Russell. Hawthorne. In A Fable For Critics. 1848. http//eldred.ne.mediaone.net/nh/fable.html Melville, Herman. Hawthorne and His Mosses, The literary World August 17, 24, 1850.