THE ROMANTICSHerman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne

By: Justin Lorenz

&Kevin Rohm

WHAT IS ROMANTICISM?

Romanticism stresses the importance of feelings, imagination, self-expression, and individual creativity

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE Born July 4, 1804 Salem, Massachusetts Changed his name by adding a ‘w’ to

disassociate from relatives including John Hathorne, who was a judge during the Salem Witch Trials

Graduated with Franklin Peirce, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Created many works including: The Scarlet Letter, Twice-Told Tales, Tanglewood Tales, and Fanshawe

HAWTHORNE Hawthorne’s works were much inspired by

Puritan New England Defined a Romance as being different from a

novel by not being concerned with the possible course of ordinary experience

He combined history with symbolism and psychological themes

Hawthorne’s works belong to dark romanticism, tales that suggest guilt, sin and evil

HAWETHORNE Hawethornes works insist that mans’

inherited qualities include: guilt, sin, gluttony. He would also express his views on ancient

sin, guilt, and retributution Later in his career Hawethorne would display

his negative introspective on on the transcendentalism movement

One of his critics Poe claims Hawethorne had plagiarized off of his works.

HERMAN MELVILLE Melville was born in New York on August

1st,1819 Herman’s mother also added an ‘e’ to the

family name after Allan his father had died The majority of Melville’s novels were

initially published in the UK before coming to the USA

Melville is most famous for the timeless classic “Moby Dick.”

MELVILLE

MELVILLE During his life Melville was never

successful earning only $10,000 in his writing career

Melville had an romantic theme throughout his novel that reconnected his characters to childhood

However, his novels are reaching higher levels of critism

MELVILLE In many of Melville’s novels there is a

reoccurring theme of gender and sexuality Many critics found a male-dominate social

structure in his novels His characters escaped to a man-only

childhood He also explores morality and often dives

into the rights we should have and the human nature

MELVILLE Melville’s last great novel “Billy Budd” has

become a staple in legal scholarship. The book walks the line of morality and power.

Where a captain falsely convicts a sailor to death to keep up his image

Melville cleverly names the ship “Rights of Man.”

He has amazing insight in this novel because he expresses human nature after corruption of power

WORK CITED Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Me

lville http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_H

awthorne www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hawthorn.htm www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/nh/hawthorne.html