Posthumous Rating of Hawthorne and “Young Goodman Brown” :: Young Goodman Brown YGB

Posthumous Rating of Hawthorne and Young Goodman Brown This canvass intends to trace the main literary criticism of the informant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Young Goodman Brownsince the authors death in 1864. Nathaniel Hawthornes acclamation as a great writer by both critics and the general public was non an overnight occurrence. The Norton Anthology American Literature states that he was agonizingly slow in winning acclaim (547). Initially, of course, Nathaniel Hawthornes literary works went unranked among those of some other American and British writers. But his reputation grew gradually even among modern-day critics, until he was recognized as a man of genius. The question in this essay is this How does he and Young Goodman Brown fare since 1864 when Hawthorne died. The poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote a poem commemorating Hawthorne for the funeral in 1864 . . . . There in seclusion and aloof from men The wizard hand lies cold, Which at its topmost speed all ow fall the pen, And left the tale half told. Ah who shall lift that wand of wizardly power, And the lost clew regain? The unfinished windows in Aladdins tower barren must remain In 1871 James T. Fields published Yesterdays With Authors, in which Chapter 3 deals with his evaluation of Nathaniel Hawthorne I AM sitting to-day opposite the relationship of the rarest genius America has given to literature,--a man who lately sojourned in this cross world of ours, but during many years of his life Wandered lonely as a cloud,-- a man who had, so to speak, a physical affinity with solitude. The writings of this author have never soiled the public thought with one unlovely image. His men and women have a magic of their own, and we shall search a long time before another arises among us to beget his place. Indeed, it seems probable no one will ever walk exactly the same round of fiction which he traversed with so free and buckram a step. What lovely thoughts What a tribu te to Hawthornes genius The real next year Henry James wrote a review of Hawthorne for the democracy Our remarks are not provoked by any visible distress conferred on Mr. Hawthornes fame by these recent publications. . .His journals throw but little write down on his personal feelings, and even less on his genius per se.