The Scarlet Letter: Embroidering Transcendentalism and Anti-transcendentalism Thread for an Early American World

Abstract

Published in 1850 by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the dark romantic story of The Scarlet Letter was immediately met with success, and Hawthorne was recognized as the first fictional writer to truly represent American perspective and experience. At the time when most novelists focused on portraying the outside world, Hawthorne dwelled deeply in the innermost, hidden emotional and mental psyches of his characters. Despite being acquainted to both famed transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and married to the transcendentalist painter Sophia Peabody, Hawthorne was often referred to as anti-transcendentalist or dark romantic writer in The Scarlet Letter. Is he also influenced by the transcendentalist movement in his famed novel? Evidence shows that he is more transcendentalist than anti-transcendentalist in The Scarlet Letter.