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“That inward Sphere”: Notes on Hawthorne's Heart Imagery and Symbolism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John W. Shroeder
John W. Shroeder*
Affiliation:
University oe Kansas City Kansas City, Missouri
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Extract

We can posit, without much initial discussion, at least three requisites to any serious critical study of Hawthorne's writings: we must identify his symbols as such, define the nature of his symbols, and examine their consequences for the total meaning of his works. In some cases, Hawthorne's symbols are painfully superficial; “Little Daffydown-dilly” is a first-rate example. In other cases, they can be got at only by considerable digging. And in still others—I suggest “The White Old Maid” as an instance—they are either not present, or else are so hidden as to cause us to suspect that they may never be satisfactorily brought out.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , March 1950 , pp. 106 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1950

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References

1 All volume and page references in my text are to The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 12 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1883).

2 v, 366; vi, 152.

3 vi, 48.

4 iii, 494; v, 262, 406.

5 iii, 159.

6 i, 336; iii, 94, 131, 360; v, 97, 359, 569.

7 i, 67, 345; iii, 127, 204; v, 103–104, 241–242; vi, 245, 246, 449.

8 ii, 134, 322, 335, 455; v, 103, 152, 158.

9 i, 345; v, 158, 161–162, 217, 434.

10 ii, 104, 141; iii, 121, 205–206, 602–603; vi, 100, 264–265, 377.

11 I have employed one key symbol to represent several immediately related symbols. “Stream”, for example, includes lake and fountain imagery. I have attempted to exclude all dubious or ambiguous images from my collection. See, for instance, the images (which may or may not be considered as cavern-associated) in v, 206, 384.

12 v, 409, 472, 495, 558–559, 564, 567, 571, 573, 574, 593, 594, 595.

13 See particularly the visions in “Fancy's Show Box” (i, 252–254).