Nathaniel Hawthorne - (1804 - 1864)
American novelist, short story writer, and essayist.
Hawthorne is an acknowledged master of American fiction. His novel The Scarlet Letter (1850) is one of the most-read classics of American literature, and several of his short stories are ranked as masterpieces of the genre. Hawthorne's works reflect his dark vision of human nature, as he frequently portrays Puritanism as an expression of humanity's potential for cruelty, obsession, and intolerance. His strange, haunting tales of guilt, isolation, and death betray his fascination with the macabre even as they plumb the depths of human psychology and moral responsibility. With Edgar Allan Poe, Hawthorne was instrumental in the evolution of American Gothic fiction, moving away from sensationalism to focus on the aesthetic and emotional response to horror and dissecting the mental processes of his characters. His highly allegorical works use Gothic conventions to explore questions about human actions and their consequences and the effects of sin on the human psyche. Gothic elements are seen in his most important works, from the short story "Young Goodman Brown" (1835) to The Scarlet Letter to his last completed novel, The Marble Faun (1860). All these works are highly symbolic, challenging moral fantasies that are chilling in their dark assessment of the human character.
