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Hawthorne's Short Stories de Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne's Short Stories

Autor Nathaniel Hawthorne
en Limba Engleză Paperback – 11 ian 2011

În Noua Anglie a secolului al XIX-lea, acolo unde umbrele trecutului puritan se întind lungi peste conștiința umană, Nathaniel Hawthorne a găsit terenul fertil pentru a-și cultiva viziunea sa artistică singulară. Putem afirma că spațiul geografic și spiritual al Massachusetts-ului nu este doar un decor în această colecție, ci un personaj în sine, generator de dileme morale profunde. Considerăm că această selecție de douăzeci și patru de povestiri, îngrijită de Newton Arvin, reprezintă chintesența „romanticismului întunecat” american, oferind o perspectivă densă asupra naturii umane. Structura volumului urmărește fidel evoluția autorului, fiind organizată pe secțiuni ce reflectă marile sale colecții: Twice-Told Tales, Mosses from an Old Manse și The Snow Image. Această organizare ne permite să observăm rafinarea progresivă a simbolismului său, de la legendele istorice precum „The Gray Champion” până la explorările psihologice cvasi-științifice din „The Birthmark”. Atmosfera te trimite cu gândul la Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories, deși rigoarea editorială a versiunii de față și includerea unor schițe mai rare precum „Alice Doane's Appeal” marchează o voce proprie, mult mai analitică și cuprinzătoare. Merită menționat că, spre deosebire de celebrul său roman The Scarlet Letter, unde explorarea vinei este una liniară și extinsă, în aceste povestiri scurte Hawthorne folosește forța fabulei pentru a lovi direct și memorabil. În „Rappaccini's Daughter” sau „The Minister's Black Veil”, autorul nu se limitează la a descrie păcatul, ci îl transformă într-un obiect fizic sau o prezență botanică otrăvitoare. Este o experiență de lectură ce impune un ritm lent, meditativ, unde fiecare propoziție este încărcată de o gravitate morală ce refuză rezolvările simple.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780307741219
ISBN-10: 0307741214
Pagini: 448
Dimensiuni: 134 x 206 x 27 mm
Greutate: 0.32 kg
Editura: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

De ce să citești această carte

Recomandăm acest volum oricărui cititor pasionat de literatura clasică americană și de proza care explorează zonele gri ale moralității. Prin Hawthorne's Short Stories, veți descoperi un maestru al alegoriei care reușește să transforme superstiția și istoria în studii psihologice perene. Este o achiziție esențială pentru cei care doresc să înțeleagă rădăcinile literaturii gotice și modul în care simbolismul poate dezvălui adevăruri incomode despre condiția umană.

Despre autor

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) a fost un romancier și nuvelist american de referință, figură centrală a mișcării romantice. Născut în Salem, Massachusetts, Hawthorne a fost profund marcat de istoria puritană a familiei sale, temă care a devenit nucleul operei sale. După debutul cu „Fanshawe” și succesul cu Twice-Told Tales, s-a impus definitiv în canonul literar prin The Scarlet Letter. Opera sa este caracterizată de o preocupare constantă pentru moralitate, religie și „păcatul ascuns”, fiind considerat, alături de Edgar Allan Poe, un arhitect al atmosferei sumbre și al profunzimii psihologice în proza scurtă universală.

Notă biografică

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1805-64) was an American novelist and short-story writer. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and graduated from Bowdoin College. His first novel, Fanshawe, was published anonymously in 1828, followed by several collections of short stories, including Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse. His later novels include The Scarlet Letter, The House of Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun.

Newton Arvin (1900-63) was a literary critic and professor at Smith College known for his influential writings about nineteenth-century American literature. He is the author of biographies of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman, and his biography of Herman Melville won the National Book Award in 1951.

Extras

The Birthmark

 In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man's ultimate control over Nature. He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength of the latter to his own.

Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble in his countenance that grew stronger until he spoke.

"Georgiana," said he, "has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?"

"No, indeed," said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his manner, she blushed deeply. "To tell you the truth it has been so often called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so."

"Ah, upon another face it might," replied her husband; "but never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection."

"Shocks you, my husband!" cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. "Then why did you take me from my mother's side? You cannot love what shocks you!"

To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of Georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face.  In the usual state of her complexion — a healthy though delicate bloom — the mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token of of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however, that the impression wrought by this fairy sign manual varied exceedingly, according to the difference of temperament of the beholders. Some fastidious persons — but they were exclusively of her own sex — affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of Georgiana's beauty, and rendered her countenance even hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that one of those small blue stains which sometimes occurred in the purest statuary marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw. After his marriage, —for he thought little or nothing of the matter before,— Aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself.

Had she been less beautiful,—if Envy's self could have found aught else to sneer at,— he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer's sombre imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight.

Descriere scurtă

Twenty-four of the best short stories by one of the early masters of the form, in the definitive collection edited by acclaimed scholar Newton Arvin.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the greatest American writers of the nineteenth century, and some of his most powerful work was in the form of fable-like tales that make rich use of allegory and symbolism. The dark beauty and moral force of his imagination are evident in such enduring masterpieces as "Young Goodman Brown," in which a young man who believes he has witnessed a satanic initiation can never see his pious neighbors the same way again; “Rappaccini's Daughter," about a lovely young girl who has been raised in isolation among dangerous poisons; and "The Birthmark," in which a scientist obsessed with perfection destroys the flaw that makes his otherwise flawless wife both beautiful and human.

Cuprins

Twice-Told Tales

 The Gray Champion
The Minister's Black Veil
The May-Pole of Merry Mount
The Gentle Boy
Wakefield
The Great Carbuncle
The Prophetic Pictures
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment
Lady Eleanore's Mantle
Old Esther Dudley
The Ambitious Guest
The White Old Maid
Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure
Endicott and the Red Cross


Mosses from an Old Manse

The Birthmark
Young Goodman Brown
Rappaccini's Daughter
The Celestial Railroad
Feathertop: A Moralized Legend
Egotism; Or, the Bosom Serpent
The Christmas Banquet
Drowne's Wooden Image
Earth's Holocaust
The Artist of the Beautiful


The Snow Image

The Great Stone Face
Ethan Brand
The Wives of the Dead


Tales and Sketches

The Antique Ring
Alice Doane's Appeal