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Nathaniel Hawthorne - One of The First American Romantic Authors

  Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer . His works of fiction are considered part of the Romantic Movement and, more specifically, Dark Romanticism . Hawthorne became friends with Herman Melville , who read his short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse . Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick ( 1851 ) is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne. " I have not lived but only dreamed about living . " - Nathaniel Hawthorne . Hawthorne's four major works are : 1.     The Scarlet Letter 2.     The House of the Seven Gables 3.     The Blithedale Romance 4.     The Marble Faun The Scarlet Letter (1850) The Scarlet Letter : A Romance is considered Hawthorne's magnum opus. It tells the story of Hester Prynne , who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. In the Puritan town of Boston, a crowd gathers to ...

American Literature

American Literature Around 1820, rapid expansion and growth in the United States fuelled intuition, imagination and individualism in literature. The American Romantic era emphasized imagination, individuality, nature as a source of spirituality, the common man as a hero and looking to the past for wisdom. The first American Romantic authors were : 1.     Ralph Waldo Emerson 2.     Henry David Thoreau 3.     Nathaniel Hawthorne Washington Irving, famous for works like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle , is regarded as the father of American literature. American writers can generally be categorized into two major groups: 1.     The Dark Romantics 2.     The Transcendentalists Prominent writers like : 1.     Edgar Allan Poe 2.     Herman Melville 3.     Walt Whitman 4.     Ezra Pound 5.     Mark Twa...