South Atlantic Modern Language Association

Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Biography by Arlin TurnerReview by: Rayburn S. MooreSouth Atlantic Review, Vol. 46, No. 2 (May, 1981), pp. 134-137Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3199481 .

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Book Reviews Book Reviews

published or that much remains to be done. Two examples are "Because so little research has been done on popular architecture, there are really no books devoted specifically to the topic as a whole" and "To date, there are few detailed bibliographies or information guides to American popular entertainment." Such statements give another reason for the repeated citing of a few major studies and, at the same time, indicate the importance of the Handbook. Certainly, much does remain to be explored, and though these two volumes offer a great deal, they cannot cover all aspects of popular culture, and it would be both foolish and ungrateful to expect that of them. Nevertheless, chapters on magazines and newspapers would be helpful, as would one on the relationship of American popular culture to that of other nations, even though relations between specific elements of popular culture in Great Britain and the United States are noted by a number of the authors. Most obviously lacking is a chapter on theories of popular culture developed thus far. Such a chapter would greatly aid the beginning researcher in finding a methodology for this still relatively un- charted field of study.

But whatever quibbles one may have about individual chapters or about subjects not included, these two volumes represent the most massive effort yet to provide the needed bibliographical basis for popular culture studies. Inge and his contributors are to be

congratulated for presenting in as succinct a form as possible this

compendium of information, which will make the task of anyone investigating the many facets of American popular culture much, much easier.

Earl F. Bargainnier, Wesleyan College

azNathaniel Hawthorne: A Biography. By Arlin Turner. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. xii, 457 pp. $20.00.

The late Arlin Turner's long-awaited biography supplies the full-scale, scholarly treatment of Hawthorne's life that earlier con- siderations, for various reasons, have not always provided. It is true, of course, that Turner has had the benefit of the Centenary Edition of Hawthorne's works (13 vols., 1962-), including the texts of Hawthorne's letters prepared for but not yet published in this edition, and of Hawthorne's Lost Notebook, 1835-1841, edited by Barbara S. Mouffe (1978). But some of the material-particularly the American notebooks already published in the Centenary Edi-

published or that much remains to be done. Two examples are "Because so little research has been done on popular architecture, there are really no books devoted specifically to the topic as a whole" and "To date, there are few detailed bibliographies or information guides to American popular entertainment." Such statements give another reason for the repeated citing of a few major studies and, at the same time, indicate the importance of the Handbook. Certainly, much does remain to be explored, and though these two volumes offer a great deal, they cannot cover all aspects of popular culture, and it would be both foolish and ungrateful to expect that of them. Nevertheless, chapters on magazines and newspapers would be helpful, as would one on the relationship of American popular culture to that of other nations, even though relations between specific elements of popular culture in Great Britain and the United States are noted by a number of the authors. Most obviously lacking is a chapter on theories of popular culture developed thus far. Such a chapter would greatly aid the beginning researcher in finding a methodology for this still relatively un- charted field of study.

But whatever quibbles one may have about individual chapters or about subjects not included, these two volumes represent the most massive effort yet to provide the needed bibliographical basis for popular culture studies. Inge and his contributors are to be

congratulated for presenting in as succinct a form as possible this

compendium of information, which will make the task of anyone investigating the many facets of American popular culture much, much easier.

Earl F. Bargainnier, Wesleyan College

azNathaniel Hawthorne: A Biography. By Arlin Turner. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. xii, 457 pp. $20.00.

The late Arlin Turner's long-awaited biography supplies the full-scale, scholarly treatment of Hawthorne's life that earlier con- siderations, for various reasons, have not always provided. It is true, of course, that Turner has had the benefit of the Centenary Edition of Hawthorne's works (13 vols., 1962-), including the texts of Hawthorne's letters prepared for but not yet published in this edition, and of Hawthorne's Lost Notebook, 1835-1841, edited by Barbara S. Mouffe (1978). But some of the material-particularly the American notebooks already published in the Centenary Edi-

134 134

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South Atlantic Review

tion and the letters yet to appear-was available to earlier biogra- phers, especially the late Randall Stewart whose biography of 1948, until now the standard life and still a very useful work, seems somewhat circumscribed in the context of the range and scope of Turner's study. Nevertheless, Turner's Hawthorne does much to illustrate, support, and develop Stewart's view that Hawthorne was less isolated, less eccentric, and more concerned about some of the leading issues of his day than earlier biographers had indi- cated.

Turner's plan is inclusive: "to present the rich variety of Haw- thorne's personality, and the individuality and complexity of his thought"; "to recognize his life and writings as the components of a consistent whole"; "to record Hawthorne's lifelong efforts to know the land and the people of his region [and] to understand the nature and meaning of the American experience"; "to introduce Hawthorne's works into the biographical narrative with the promi- nence they had in his life"; and, finally, "to place Hawthorne's works, a good portion of them, in the context of his life, charac- terizing his works and reporting his life in such terms as he might have used himself, and leaving readers, as he indicated many times was his preference, to supply their own interpretations and applications." This is a large order, of course, but one that Turner fills amply and admirably.

Hawthorne's personality emerges clearly. We see him in his mother's family and as a relative of the Mannings. We see him as husband to Sophia Peabody, father to Una, Julian, and Rose, and brother-in-law to Elizabeth Peabody. We see him as friend to Horatio Bridge, Franklin Pierce, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Herman Melville, and others like William Pike and Zachariah Burchmore, colleagues in the Salem custom house. Indeed, though Hawthorne was a very shy soul concerned about his own privacy and integrity, he had more friends than Emerson's well-known journal comment after Hawthorne's death would suggest: "It was easy to talk with him,-there were no barriers,-only, he said so little, that I talked too much, and stopped only because, as he gave no indications, I feared to exceed." "Moreover, I have felt," Emerson continues, "that I could well wait his time,-his unwil- lingness and caprice,-and might one day conquer a friend- ship .... Now it appears that I waited too long." Despite Emerson's awareness of Hawthorne's "painful solitude" and Mel- ville's exuberant but in-the-end unsuccessful effort to bring Hawthorne closer than he wanted to come, Hawthorne could be

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Book Reviews

outgoing at times and his personality is especially well revealed in his letters to his wife and to friends. He reveals a wit and sense of humor in some of his correspondence-adeptly used by Turner- that belies the old view of him as shy recluse. During a visit to London in the spring of 1856, for example, Hawthorne wrote his wife on April 7 that he was being "lionized" and that "this one

experience will be quite sufficient for me. I find it something between a botheration and a satisfaction." The next day he wrote one of his British hosts and friends, Francis Bennoch (1812-1890), a dealer in silk who had called on Hawthorne shortly after he had arrived as American consul in Liverpool, about the previous eve-

ning's entertainment with Bennoch and Albert Smith, a lecturer

they had heard discourse on an ascent of Mount Blanc, who later

joined them at Evans's Supper Rooms. Smith, Hawthorne wrote Bennoch, was "the very ace of trumps-but he ought not to have come it quite so strong over my Yankee simplicity as to make me drink four!!!!-and upon my honor, I believe it was five!!!!-five

'goes' (is that the phrase?) of whisky toddy! Having never heard of this drink before," Hawthorne observed tongue-in-cheek, "I natu-

rally supposed that it was some kind of tee-total beverage; for in America, a lecturer (like Mr. Albert Smith) is looked upon as own brother to a clergyman, and is invariably a temperance-man... At any rate, I have a suspicion that hot whisky toddy, when taken in considerable quantities, has a slightly intoxicating quality." Without mitigating Hawthorne's inclinations towards privacy, Turner clearly indicates that this other side of Hawthorne's person- ality is equally important.

As to Hawthorne's work, Turner, though he points out that he is not offering "critical evaluations of individual tales and ro-

mances," not applying "one critical method or approach," nor

surveying "the library of Hawthorne criticism," still provides valu- able insight into the fiction by examining it in the context of Hawthorne's life. The discussions of The Scarlet Letter, The House of Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun, if not

always new (Turner had discussed Blithedale on two previous occasions), are nevertheless helpful contextual considerations of the novels.

On the whole, Turner's demonstration and interpretation of Hawthorne's "habits of thinking and speaking" and his "distinc- tive ways of seeing and saying things" reveal much about the great romancer and his craft in a way that represents scholarship at its

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South Atlantic Review 137

best. If it may be said of Hawthorne, and surely it may, that "the

style is indeed the man himself," then it may also be said of Turner that the style is indeed the scholar himself.

Rayburn S. Moore, University of Georgia

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