"This matter of the individual": Nathaniel Hawthorne's Individualism

Abstract

This dissertation provides extensive critical engagement with ideas of individualism in the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). This largely unexplored area presents a major lacuna in Hawthorne Studies, and this project redresses the absence by drawing together previously disparate strands of research and contextual material on one of the “American Renaissance’s” most important literary figures. Individualism represents the stance or ideology that emphasises the fundamental moral worth of the individual. For Hawthorne, the individual was a reflexive entity, constantly informed by personal agency, historical and cultural influences, and a dynamic engagement with society. This analysis reconstitutes our understanding of Hawthorne’s texts by examining his characters and literary career, respectively, as clear evidence of the author’s exploration of American individualism. In looking at Hawthorne’s oeuvre from the perspective of his political, religious and artistic personae, this work presents the author as a product of his Jacksonian milieu, highlighting the importance of Democratic culture to a broader comprehension of this writer’s literature. Fundamentally, this dissertation grounds Hawthorne in his time, moving away from critiques of his work that rely too heavily on constructed ideas of familial guilt and an image of the author as a Puritan-obsessed, isolated figure. The Hawthorne presented by this analysis is indelibly connected to the trials and tribulations of his era, keenly aware of the machinations of politics and culture, and consistently reactive to the changing status of authorship throughout the Jacksonian and antebellum periods. This broad-ranging analysis includes much of Hawthorne’s fiction, non-fiction and correspondence in order to provide a rounded examination of the formative influence of individualism upon his work, and, indeed, in his development as an American citizen.