Nathaniel Hawthorne, the transcendental movement and The Blithedale Romance as a novelistic critique

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Mannheim, language: English, abstract: The paper is divided into two main sections. The first section informs about the historical background of the transcendental movement, its central ideas and its main followers. Further, basic information about Hawthorne's attitude towards transcendentalism and his stay at Brook Farm is given. The second section, which covers three parts, focuses on Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance. The first part concentrates on Coverdale's critical pessimism towards the social experiment. Here, the naiveté of the reform approach and the omnipresent theme of masquerading are in the center of consideration. The second part deals with the transcendental elevation of nature. In this context, the juxtaposition between urban and natural environments within the novel as well as the depiction of mesmerism and the expected benefits of farm work are discussed. The third part centers on the transcendental tenet of self-reliance, which is differentiated between the utopia of communal and individual self-reliance.