The Style in Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown :: Young Goodman Brown YGB

The Style in Young Goodman Brown Nathaniel Hawthornes short story or tale, Young Goodman Brown, is an interesting example of the multi-faceted name of the author, which will be discussed in this essay. Edgar Allan Poe in Twice-Told Tales - A Review, which appeared in Grahams Magazine in May, 1842, comments on Hawthornes originality, and tranquil and subdued manner which characterize his carriage The Essays of Hawthorne have much of the character of Irving, with more of originality, and less of finish while, compared with the Spectator, they have a vast superiority at all points. The Spectator, Mr. Irving, and Mr. Hawthorne have in leafy vegetable that tranquil and subdued manner which we have chosen to denominate repose. . . . In the essays before us the absence of effort is too obvious to be mistaken, and a strong undercurrent of suggestion runs continuously beneath the upper stream of the tranquil thesis. In short, these effusions of Mr. Hawthorne are the product of a truly imaginative intellect, restrained, and in rough measure repressed, by fastidiousness of taste, by constitutional melancholy and by indolence. Peter Conn in Finding a Voice in an new-made Nation discloses a characteristic of Hawthornes tyle with regard to his short stories Almost all of Hawthornes finest stories are remote in time or set out (82). Nathaniel Hawthornes tale Young Goodman Brown is no exception to this rule, being placed in historic Salem, Massachusetts, back in the 1600s. Herman Melville in Hawthorne and His Mosses, (in The Literary reality August 17, 24, 1850) has a noteworthy comment on Hawthornes style Nathaniel Hawthorne is a man, as yet, almost utterly mistaken among men. Here and there, in some quiet arm-chair in the noisy town, or some deep nook among the noiseless mountains, he may be appreciated for something of what he is. But opposed Shakespeare, who was forced to the contrary course by circumstances, Hawthorne (either from simple disinclination, o r else from inaptitude) refrains from all the popularizing noise and show of broad farce, and blood-besmeared tragedy content with the still, rich utterances of a massive intellect in repose, and which sends few thoughts into circulation, except they be arterialized at his large warm lungs, and expanded in his honest heart. How beautifully does this critic capture the primary attitude of Hawthorne, who avoids the noise and show and emphasizes his rich utterances.