Get Lit Episode 43: Nathaniel Hawthorne

[Music] Get lit! Welcome back to Get Lit, the literary podcast where we discuss famous works of literature and the authors that wrote them. I'm your host, StuffSFars, here with my young charge, young Jonathan. Yes, John's tricker here, young Jonathan at your service. It just feels right for this week's episode. That's going to take us back quite a few decades. How exciting! It is! By the way, just a side note. I have someone who is at my work and I listen to this podcast and they now call me young Jonathan only. It wasn't the original person you were talking about, either, StuffSFars. So thank you for being here, remember? Like spreading that out through my work place. I'll be known as young Jonathan from here on out. You're welcome. Yeah, thank you. It's a gift that keeps that in giving. What can I say? Thank you. Yes, we will be discussing this week the other Hawthorne and probably the more well-known Hawthorne, Nathaniel this week. But we had such a blast recording last week's episode about Hazel Hawthorne and have gotten some like beautifully supportive and positive feedback. So thank you to everybody who listened to that one. It's definitely one of my favorite to date. It was just such a cool experience to be able to put that together. Anytime we can talk to an expert, it's really enlightening, but like an expert specifically on something that's so meaningful to you specifically, it was really cool. It was a lot of fun. So if you haven't had a chance to listen to that one, go ahead and feel free to take a listen. We would love to hear your thoughts on it. Speaking of your thoughts, we would also love to hear your thoughts about our upcoming Get Lit Live in February. We are so excited to be doing the Brandtay Sisters and would love to know if you're going to be able to join us. So feel free to reach out in some way, shape, or form and let us know and we'll send out details about that. But I think it'll be a really fantastic and fun. I'm excited. I think it'll be a lot of fun. It's going to be perfect for Valentine's Day. There's going to be Light or Freshman's. There's going to be Talk of Allthers. Really, what more can you want from a February weekend? Nothing. Nothing. It's a perfect February weekend. Perfect February weekend. We hope to see you there. And we will of course play some games and have a lot of trivia and things involved. So I think those are only two little announcements for now. With that being said, I think it is time to turn our attention to Salem Massachusetts. So you better believe they're going to be witches in this episode, which I am so excited about. The Sanderson Sisters? Pretty much. The Samuel Hawthorne was born July 4th, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. That's Independence Day, Stephanie. That is Independence Day. Only 28 years after Independence Day itself was established. Look at that. Look at that. He is a cancer, which I could definitely see. He has a lot of emotional tendencies and sort of I would say a conscientiousness about him that would make him indicative of a cancer. But back to Salem, my favorite part of this entire thing. He's actually very, his family legacy is very entrenched in American history and it is particularly appeared in legacy. So an early ancestor of his William Hawthorne, this will come back later. Hawthorne. No W. Back Later. I'm aggrated from England to America in 1630 and became a judge. And his son, John Hawthorne, was one of the three judges during the Salem Witch Trials. No way. Yes. The very same, which is cool because if anyone has ever read The Crucible, you'll know that Hawthorne is like literally one of the judge characters, which is exciting to me because he was significant enough in the Witch Trial history to be commemorated. Interesting. Yeah. So he is very related to the Salem Witch Trials, which is really cool. As a result of his connection to this sort of highly pure to an American history, he adds a W to his name to distance himself from that side of the family. Really? Yes. He did not want to be recognized because again, we're still not that far removed from that piece of history. Yeah. So it was something I guess that he thought would have a significant impact on his life and as a result. And there's no Google. So like just add a letter and no one will know. No one knows. Except we do. We do. Sorry Nathaniel. So he is the only son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Hawthorne. He has two sisters and it's just the three of them. His father who was a sea captain died in 1808 from yellow fever while he was at sea. So this is when Nathaniel is only four years old. And as a result, the family moves in with Elizabeth's wealthy brothers. So he lives and kind of grows up with his uncles. He's playing cricket and at an early age, I think it was around 13, he winds up being a mobile for several months, healing from this leg injury. Oh no. But this is what helps him develop his passion for reading and really inspires him to become a writer. So yeah, I'm really sorry about your leg. However, it's really, you know, it's fond of literary giant. Yes. What a silver lining in that moment. So his uncles who have a ton of money help send him to Bowdoin College. He's coming back home of the Polar Bears. Good job. Polar Bears. And he attends Bowdoin from 1821 to 1825, which is where he meets one Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Oh Nate. Yes. And an alleged future president, Franklin Pierce. And can't verify that information. Please help me listeners. Taxed or tweet. Franklin Pierce is a president. Fine. I'm sure he is. Whatever. So he doesn't like the actual academics of college and rather prefers to hang out with his friends and discuss literary things. But he's also really homesick for his mother and his two sisters. And so after he graduates, he goes back to live with them for 12 years actually. And these 12 years he turns into sort of a reckless. There are a couple of scholars and articles that I was reading that call them his attic years because he just like stayed in an attic for 12 years. ATTIC. Yes. Yes. I heard attic. Like what? A drug addict. Addict. Addict. Right. Oh. You live in an attic. And you have an, you like you are an addict. Thank you. Did you just learn something new? I didn't really know that they, I knew they sound different, but that's all fitting. I'm glad that we can illuminate these things on this podcast. People are learning. Thank you Stephanie. He lived in an attic. And at this time, this is sort of an interesting cultural piece of history. Most books sold in America were either imported from England. So they were written by Charles Diggins, Brino British authors and things like that and brought over from the States. Or they were just stolen from other sources. So there was very little original American writing going on during this time. And in 1828, this is just after he adds the W to his adult name. He tries to publish a book. He writes a Gothic romance called Fanshawe. And it gets some praise, but he recognized kind of immediately that it wasn't the best work he could have ever produced. So he actually denies even to the end of his life writing it. His sister's both new and so later the truth comes out, but he literally just denied that he wrote it at all, which house kind of interesting. So I'm assuming he must have published it like anonymously just to see how things would go. But he distanced himself a lot from that. He starts to write short stories instead and publishes the hollow of the three hills and an old woman's tale. And by 1832, he's written some of his more famous works, My Kinsman Major Molnya and Roger Malvin's burial, which I haven't really heard of. No, I've never heard of. In 1837, he writes twice told tales. That's like what? Great alliteration. Yeah, it's twice told tales. Nice hard tease. Yeah, that's good. Maybe that'll be a tongue twister my acting class. So Hawthorne needs to kind of figure out how to support himself. His writing is getting him some money, but not a whole lot. So he becomes the editor of the American magazine of useful and entertaining knowledge. At least it's really concise that title. Well he takes it because he could make $500 for it and you know who cares. Right. Was it a high class novel? Like it just was what it sounded like. Yeah just about entertaining. It was very entertaining. And unfortunately between these two things he wasn't really able to support himself. So he works for the Boston custom house and ways salt and coal. So a little bit of a change from his imaginative writing. And he ends his seclusion at home kind of around this time as well and meets a woman named Sophia Pibidi or Peebadi but I like Pibidi as a pronunciation better. Also we're gonna go with that one. She is a painter and illustrator and they fall in love. Oh, um. Oh, ain't coal. No. Hawthorne knew Sophia's sister from running in the same sort of intellectual circles and then they meet which is kind of cool. That is cool. However, Sophia is pretty ill and as a result of her sickness they kind of have to postpone their marriage for a while and as a result of this they are engaged for several years before they can actually get married. Wow. In April 1841 he invests a thousand dollars. He gets fifteen thousand sorry he gets fifteen hundred dollars from the Boston custom house and invest one thousand of it. So two thirds of it into Brook Farm. I don't know if you yeah it's like I don't know how much you remember from Brook Farm but Brook Farm is the Transcendentalist Utopia that Ralph Otto Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were kind of involved in creating. It only lasted if I recall correctly seven months before it collapsed. Yeah and they were the main people who started if they know. No, but they never participants. Yes, but they neither neither of them actually lived there but they both supported it. Right and so Hawthorne didn't really love Transcendentalism but he found that living on the commune could save him money so I guess that's a good reason to join the commune. You save money? I don't know I'm just wary of the word commune. Well anyhow it worked out well. So in 1842 on July 9th he and Sophie are able to get married which is very nice and then they settle in Concord, Massachusetts and rent Old Man's which is the property that Emerson's relatives built and then he would later own. And so this is where we see him crossing circles with Thoreau and Emerson, the Alcott, Spronzen, Louise and May etc. And during his time living here he's really productive. He produced 20 manuscripts during the course of his time there including the birthmark and Rappuccini's daughter which are both very famous. Both very good. They actually kind of focus on the plight of women which his most famous and iconic novel the Scarlet Letter which we'll get to later does as well. Do you think it's because he had such a strong like attachment to his two sisters and his mother with like no father at home? I think that's a great theory. Yeah. Just to why a female protagonist might make more sense to him. Yeah. So yeah I don't know exactly why but I have a feeling that academics have probably speculated quite heavily on that. Yeah. How interesting. Yeah. So he and his wife have three children in 1844. They have their daughter Una and then they will have a son named Julian and a daughter named Rose later down the line. And this was sort of interesting tidbit when I was doing research about Hawthorne. His daughter Rose initially wanted to be an author but eventually got married and converted to Roman Catholicism which the Hawthorne's were not. We're all like Puritan so she converts. But unfortunately her son and her husband both die. Her son is only five when he dies. I'm not exactly sure how they did. So she Rose moves into a tenement in New York City and then begins to nurse cancer patients in curable cancer patients and then she joins a religious order and becomes a none mother Mary Alfonza. And in 1900 she found the Dominican sisters of Hawthorne to continue her work with these cancer patients and in 2003 she actually gets nominated for st.hood. So that's cool. She's obviously dead by that time. But it can only become a saint after your death. Really? For the most part yeah. But not always. I think there's been like one or two exceptions ever. So she gets nominated to become a saint because it's kind of cool. You know did you make it or was she just nominated? I don't know. I could look that way. We will consult for st. Hawthorne. I just think it's very funny that the legacy of the Hawthorne family is Puritan that her father tried to escape and then she goes turns Catholic. Yeah. And then becomes a literal like saint basically. Wow. Like how much would her Puritan ancestors be like rolling over in their graves? Yes. Wow. I just thought that was kind of a cool sidebar. But back to Nathaniel. He is acquiring a lot of debt from doing all this writing and not making a ton of money. So they move back to Salem. Still in Massachusetts. And Hawthorne was a lifelong Democrat. And actually it's his political connections that help him get a job as a surveyor in the Salem custom house. Should we make the comment now that Democrat in the past isn't the same as Democrat today? There you go. So Hawthorne is a Democrat different than today's Democrats to be precise. And he works at the Salem custom house. And this provides some financial security for his family, which is very helpful. However, allegedly some other guy named Zachary Taylor gets elected president. Couldn't tell you anything about him though. He was a wig party. Yeah. When I was doing that, I literally sort of just assumed that that was only a British thing. I mean, I obviously there ties that makes a lot of sense. But the politics of this time are something that are incredibly influential in Hawthorne's life. So I was like, oh, that was interesting. So Zachary Taylor. No air post Stephanie. He was real. Zachary Taylor gets elected. And because Hawthorne is a Democrat, he actually loses his appointment because of the politics, which I thought was pretty interesting. As a surveyor. Yeah. So like that's the person who settles land disputes. So like it's a real big it's a big thing. That could make a big difference if your families are arguing and fighting over his land as he is. So this however turns out to be another silver lining moment. Because after he loses that position, he sits down to write a little novel called the Scarlet Letter. Never heard of it. Which talks about the clashes over Puritan moral law, right, which makes complete sense based on this history. And initially the first run of the copies is 2500. So they sell out in 10 days. In literally the 1800s. That's crazy. 2500 copies. 10 days. Wow. It's insane. This was one of the first mass produced publications in the United States. And this distribution really solidifies his standing as a famous American writer. So Hawthorne doesn't love living in Salem because of the Puritan associations and affiliations that it has. And so they move to Red House, which is in Lennox, Massachusetts. And this is actually where he meets one Herman Melville who wrote Mobey Dick. And when Mobey Dick is published in November of 1851, Melville actually dedicates it to Hawthorne with admiration for his genius. Wow. Their friendship is intense but brief. And I think they kind of fed off of one another because he also during this time Hawthorne produces the House of Seven Gables and Blivedale Romance and Tanglewood Tales, which he is all known for as well. During the 1852 election, Hawthorne writes a campaign biography for his good old friend, Pierce, the president, E, whatever. So he does wind up getting elected presidents. No airquows. As a result, he actually appoints Hawthorne to be the American Council in Britain. Wow. As a reward for his biography writing. And so the Hawthorne family, he brings his wife and the kids over to England from 1853 to 1857, so the four years of the presidency. And this actually helps inspire his novel, Our Old Home. And with the money that he earns from being the council, Hawthorne takes his family on an extended vacation to Italy. What a nice time that was his wife, who loves art as an illustrator really appreciated the art and Hawthoram's journals. have actually been discovered with every piece of art that he saw and the notes that he took about them from that time, which I think is pretty remarkable. I'd love to see that. So, in November of 1858, Una gets really sick with malaria, and that takes her six months to get over, and she never fully recovers, but she gets well enough that they will then wind up going back to the United States. And in 1860, he finishes the Marble Fawn, his last novel, and they settle in wayside in Concord, Massachusetts, that's the name of their house. However, over the next several years, he will start, but never finish any other work. His health really starts to deteriorate. He experiences symptoms of kind of confusion, being slow of thought, and he refuses to seek any medical attention or help with any kind. No, maybe. So, Franklin Pierce, after he finishes his presidency, decides that he needs to help his friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne. So, in May of 1864, they both leave Boston to take a leisurely trip through New Hampshire to try to help make him better. Unfortunately, though, he dies in his sleep while they are traveling. And he is buried in Plymouth, New Hampshire, for four days, and then they take him out, put him in Concord, Sleepy Hollow, cemetery, which is where we saw his grave. Right, right. So, I just thought that was kind of interesting that he wound up getting buried for four days. Oh, why would they do that? I don't know. I wonder. Well, so, the thing that I'm kind of thinking of is when authors Ridge might have been created. So, the listeners, when John and I went to our province town trip over the summer, we stopped by that cemetery to see the all-cuts grave, in Therough and Emerson's graves and things like that. And Hawthorne is very there, too. And it's a very old cemetery, but I'm wondering when authors Ridge was established as a place? Obviously, I don't think it was in the four days between him dying, but I don't know, I thought that might be kind of interesting is when they decided to move him to author's Ridge and make it official. Yeah. But yeah, so that is the sort of fun life of Nathaniel Hawthorne. I don't know. I was an interesting story. Yeah. He's a diplomat. He knew a lot of presidents, or some important political figures or something like that, and had the opportunity to do a lot of traveling, but I think when we think about the Scarlet Letter, the idea that one of the earliest and most famous novels in the United States history is about a woman who does something that society does not agree with, gets branded for it, but then kind of demonstrates the hypocrisy of Puritan law is remarkable. I mean, to think about, I don't think people when they think about the Scarlet Letter automatically think about the context that it sits in, but like what an interesting commentary that that makes about what America was allowing to be published and printed and established as part of our literary history. I just I thought that was really, you know, I didn't really think about it until I started sitting down and typing out I know it's a good point. Yeah. The fact that I mean, it's scandalous at the heart of it. Yeah, it's scandalous, but also in some ways it's kind of like taking apart societal expectations for what women were to do or what they were not to do. And although you know, our protagonist Hester winds up in a less than ideal situation. There's a certain power to her that I don't think you can really deny that is important to acknowledge and I think establishes something of a voice for women in some ways, even though it's written from the from by a man, but right ahead. I mean, the the the fact that the antagonist is been punished or like is held to account for the action is the worst. It's the worst, right? But like the fact that they call the they call them out on it. Yeah. Right. And it shows that you can't just get away with heresy being rude and being rude being rude. Yeah, I agree. So I guess not to not to discount. Thank you, Nathaniel Hawthorne for kind of planting those seeds early in American history. And you know, don't know that I've credit him with inspiring movements, but definitely an interesting thing. I think that can add some layers of depth to anybody who's reading the Scarlet Letter. So students, if you're reading Scarlet Letter in School right now, let me know what your teachers are doing. What kind of conversations are you having around this text? Are you reading it as a piece of American literary history? Are you reading it for its literary merit or any number of those combinations? We would love to hear about it. I think I unfortunately don't get to teach that text right now, but I would love to hear what you're doing with it. So that's Nathaniel Hawthorne for you. That's really cool. Yeah. Can I say one fact that just took out with me? Sure. The fact that he would go and see art and then take notes in the margins of his notebook. Yeah. Like nerd, absolute nerd. I mean, I say that as I literally shall see the notes that I've written about. But like, what an interesting, I'd like to do that next time I go to an art exhibit, like take a little notebook and write down my thoughts while I'm looking at the pictures. Great. That'll be a Gitlet field trip. Let's arrange an art institute trip. Let's look at the context of art in literature. Yes. Okay. Portrait of the project. Well, great. Yeah, I know that, but like, that actually is the art institute. It is there? Yeah. Not like, like it was known for painted it of the picture drawing. Oh, but who painted it? I don't remember who painted it. Well, look it up. Well, perhaps we'll take a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago for any of you in the Midwest dying to go on a literary companion trip. That sounds like a lot of fun. It does. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. For that. And thank you. As always for your support. We have an absolute blast during this podcast and clearly creating new things kind of on the fly as we go that you have all wholeheartedly embraced and generously supported. And we really appreciate that. So thank you for that support and for always keeping it lit. [Music]