The Shape of Hawthorne's Career / / Nina Baym.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Baym, Nina,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2019]; ©1976
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (288 p.)

This gracefully written book considers all of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works, from Fanshawe through the unfinished romances of his last years, and establishes the pattern of his literary development. Ms. Baym brings the crucial facts of Hawthorne’s career into clear focus, and places the individual works within the total picture. Disputing some enduring critical pieties, she finds in Hawthorne a writer who experimented with a series of literary poses through which he tried both to discover himself and to please his audience. He realized late, she says, the paradox that the more he departed from conventional modes, the more "popular" his writing became. By looking discerningly at all of Hawthorne’s work as it unfolded, Ms. Baym produces compelling new insights into a major American writer and adds appreciably to our understanding of him.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Beginnings, 1825-1834 -- 2. The Twice-told Tales Period, 1834-1839 -- 3. The Manse Decade, 1840-1849 -- 4. The Major Phase I, 1850 -- 5. The Major Phase II, 1851 -- 6. The Major Phase III, 1852-1853 -- 7. English and Italian Years, 1853-1859 -- 8. The Last Phase, 1860-1864 -- Index