Hawthorne's Opera Prima: The Permanence of Themes in Fiction

Abstract

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s first novel Fanshawe, partially due to its author’s deliberate and quite successful efforts to suppress it, has never attracted the attention it deserves. The critics who have heeded it have mostly focused their discussions on its derivative characteristics. Also, Robert E. Gross detected and called attention to the timid presence of the great Hawthornean themes which he thought had survived until the end of his career. This brief paper attempts to analyse some other very essential features in Fanshawe that Gross neglected. Not only are Hawthorne’s traditional themes and his distinct style perceptible in Fanshawe, but also his personal likes and dislikes, his obsessions, his dreams and preoccupations. These and many other idiosyncrasies of Hawthorne permeate Fanshawe and were an essential part of his later literature.