OXFORD JOURNALS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Hawthorne and the Problem of New England Author(s):Robert Milder Source:American Literary History,Vol.21,No.3(Fall,2009).pp.464-491 Published by:Oxford University Press Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/20638603 Accessed:10-11-2017 17:39 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars.researchers,and students discover,use,and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive.We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR,please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms Conditions of Use,available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to American Literary History USTOR This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri,10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Hawthorne and the Problem of New England Author(s): Robert Milder Source: American Literary History, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Fall, 2009), pp. 464-491 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20638603 Accessed: 10-11-2017 17:39 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Literary History This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Hawthorne and the Problem of New england Robert Milder Regions are not only concrete geographic domains but also con- ceptual places. Joseph A.Conforti,Imagining New England Responding in 1957 to a question about his fictional subject, William Faulkner insisted that he did not write about the South and southern civilization save as they constituted the particular “country'that he knew;his interest was“the human heart'”(IO). Hawthorne spoke similarly when he described himself as "burrow- ing...into the depths of our common nature,for the purposes of psychological romance"(XI:4).Faulkner and Hawthorne did write about their regions,past and present,explicitly and on levels available to conscious control,but they also wrote from their regions insofar as their notions of "the heart"were inflected by their personal and cultural relationship to a distinctively local world and by the sense of life they introjected,half-unconsciously, from its ethos. Some writers (Melville,for one)are imaginable apart from their birthplace and authorial homes;Hawthorne is not.Over the course of his career,Hawthorne had four major "habitations"that were the scene and literal or figurative subject of his writing: Salem,MA,his ancestral home and ingrained point of reference; Concord,MA,where he lived from 1842 to 1845 (and again in 1852-53 and after 1860)and came into contact with the Adamic Robert Milder,Professor of English at Washington University in St.Louis,is the author of Reimagining Thoreau(1995)and Exiled Royalties:Melville and the Life We Imagine (2006).Along with Randall Fuller,he recently co-edited The Business of Reflection:Hawthorne in His Notebooks (2009).He is currently writing a book on Hawthorne titled"Hawthorne's Habitations." doi:10.1093/alh/ajp020 Advance Access publication May 9,2009 The Author 2009.Published by Oxford University Press.All rights reserved. For permissions,please e-mail:journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri,10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Hawthorne and the Problem of New England Robert Milder Regions are not only concrete geographic domains but also con ceptual places. Joseph A. Conforti, Imagining New England Responding in 1957 to a question about his fictional subject, William Faulkner insisted that he did not write about the South and southern civilization save as they constituted the particular "country" that he knew; his interest was "the human heart" (10). Hawthorne spoke similarly when he described himself as "burrow ing ... into the depths of our common nature, for the purposes of psychological romance" (XI: 4).1 Faulkner and Hawthorne did write about their regions, past and present, explicitly and on levels available to conscious control, but they also wrote from their regions insofar as their notions of "the heart" were inflected by their personal and cultural relationship to a distinctively local world and by the sense of life they introjected, half-unconsciously, from its ethos. Some writers (Melville, for one) are imaginable apart from their birthplace and authorial homes; Hawthorne is not. Over the course of his career, Hawthorne had four major "habitations" that were the scene and literal or figurative subject of his writing: Salem, MA, his ancestral home and ingrained point of reference; Concord, MA, where he lived from 1842 to 1845 (and again in 1852-53 and after 1860) and came into contact with the Adamic Robert Milder, Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, is the author of Reimagining Thoreau (1995) and Exiled Royalties: Melville and the Life We Imagine (2006). Along with Randall Fuller, he recently co-edited The Business of Reflection: Hawthorne in His Notebooks (2009). He is currently writing a book on Hawthorne titled "Hawthorne's Habitations." doi:10.1093/alh/ajp020 Advance Access publication May 9, 2009 ? The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: joumals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Literary History 465 spirit of the American Renaissance;England,where he served as consul in Liverpool from 1853 to 1857,and where he felt himself more "surrounded by materialisms,and hemmed in with the gross- ness of this earthly life,than anywhere else"in his experience (XXII:433);and Italy,where he resided through most of 1858- 59,drafted The Marble Faun (1860),and was challenged,like James's Americans abroad,by the obliquities of an older,denser civilization morally as well as culturally at variance with his own. Beyond geographical localities,"habitations"thus imply mental residences,or regions of thought and sensibility associated with place but not narrowly co-extensive with it and having their own distinctive attitudes,colorations,and constellation of themes.Of these habitations,New England,or "Salem,"has priority not simply because it was the first but because,like Faulkner's South, it was the lens through which he processed all the others.In this respect,Hawthorne never left "Salem"or divested himself of his identity-shaping ambivalence toward New England. Toward the end of "The Custom-House"Hawthorne wrote with wishful finality of Salem,"Henceforth,it ceases to be a reality of my life.I am a citizen of somewhere else"(I:4).He had previously tried to sever his roots in Salem,settling in Concord's Old Manse in July 1842 and reinventing himself as writer and man in the three years that followed.In the fall of 1845 life returned him to Salem like a "bad half-penny,"as he put it (II: 12),and it was in Salem,after his mother's death nearly four years later,that he wrote The Scarlet Letter (1850).The ending of "The Custom-House"was intended as a farewell to Salem not only as a residence but as a mental "habitation"associated with an identity (the lonely recluse of the Twice-Told Tales period)and a literary practice.But the bad penny returned,inwardly at least,once more. Even in self-exile in the distant Berkshires,Salem remained for Hawthorne both a weight and a gravitational pull."Mr.Hawthorne thinks it is Salem which he is dragging at his ankles still,"his wife reported of his gloomy spirits on 1 August 1850,more than two months after the move to Lenox (qtd in Wineapple 220).By early September Hawthorne had begun The House of the Seven Gables (1851),his Salem book,which also ends with a decisive break from the town.Salem had imprinted itself on Hawthorne in ways that physical separation alone could not erase.His first exorcism in "The Custom-House"had been incomplete;the ritual had to be performed again. I use "Salem"as synecdochical for "New England"because in Hawthorne's imagination it largely was,despite his broad acquaintance with the region.As a boy,Hawthorne had lived for a time in Maine,where his maternal relatives,the Mannings,had This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri,10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Literary History 465 spirit of the American Renaissance; England, where he served as consul in Liverpool from 1853 to 1857, and where he felt himself more "surrounded by materialisms, and hemmed in with the gross ness of this earthly life, than anywhere else" in his experience (XXII: 433); and Italy, where he resided through most of 1858 59, drafted The Marble Faun (1860), and was challenged, like James's Americans abroad, by the obliquities of an older, denser civilization morally as well as culturally at variance with his own. Beyond geographical localities, "habitations" thus imply mental residences, or regions of thought and sensibility associated with place but not narrowly co-extensive with it and having their own distinctive attitudes, colorations, and constellation of themes. Of these habitations, New England, or "Salem," has priority not simply because it was the first but because, like Faulkner's South, it was the lens through which he processed all the others. In this respect, Hawthorne never left "Salem" or divested himself of his identity-shaping ambivalence toward New England. Toward the end of "The Custom-House" Hawthorne wrote with wishful finality of Salem, "Henceforth, it ceases to be a reality of my life. I am a citizen of somewhere else" (I: 4). He had previously tried to sever his roots in Salem, settling in Concord's Old Manse in July 1842 and reinventing himself as writer and man in the three years that followed. In the fall of 1845 life returned him to Salem like a "bad half-penny," as he put it (II: 12), and it was in Salem, after his mother's death nearly four years later, that he wrote The Scarlet Letter (1850). The ending of "The Custom-House" was intended as a farewell to Salem not only as a residence but as a mental "habitation" associated with an identity (the lonely recluse of the Twice-Told Tales period) and a literary practice. But the bad penny returned, inwardly at least, once more. Even in self-exile in the distant Berkshires, Salem remained for Hawthorne both a weight and a gravitational pull. "Mr. Hawthorne thinks it is Salem which he is dragging at his ankles still," his wife reported of his gloomy spirits on 1 August 1850, more than two months after the move to Lenox (qtd in Wineapple 220). By early September Hawthorne had begun The House of the Seven Gables (1851), his Salem book, which also ends with a decisive break from the town. Salem had imprinted itself on Hawthorne in ways that physical separation alone could not erase. His first exorcism in "The Custom-House" had been incomplete; the ritual had to be performed again. I use "Salem" as synecdochical for "New England" because in Hawthorne's imagination it largely was, despite his broad acquaintance with the region. As a boy, Hawthorne had lived for a time in Maine, where his maternal relatives, the Mannings, had This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
466 Hawthorne and the Problem of New England property and where he later went to college and returned to visit his friend Horatio Bridge.In the 1830s he traveled widely in northern New England during summer or fall vacations.He jour- neyed through the White Mountains,still primitive at the time, spent several weeks in the Berkshires,and was deeply appreciative of the "strong,unlettered sense,imbued with humor,"that was part of "everybody's talk"in rustic New England (VIII:94).He also knew Boston intimately,both the city of his own day and the seventeenth-century town he discovered in his antiquarian readings and depicted in The Scarlet Letter.But it was Salem that was "the inevitable centre of the universe"for him (I:12),loathe it as he professed to do from his post-college years to his return from Europe in 1860,when he dreaded the thought of"spending any time in Salem,or even passing through the wretched old town" (XV:311). "Salem history haunted him,"Margaret B.Moore remarked (2),but beyond his fascination with Salem witchcraft-a colorful but scarcely a live issue in the second quarter of the nineteenth century-what was the nature of his engagement with the New England past,specifically the Salem past?"The historical sense," T.S.Eliot remarked,"involves a perception,not only of the past- ness of the past"-its difference from ourselves;its over-and- doneness-"but of its presence"(49).Hawthorne shared this twofold historical sense.With something like Eliot's "pastness of the past"in mind,Michael J.Colacurcio describes the "intention...in the best of [Hawthorne's]early tales"as "the wish to recover the affective quality of human lives lived under con- ditions or assumptions different from those which prevailed in his own later and more liberal age.Or,alternatively,"he adds, echoing Eliot's notion of "presence,"it is "the desire to re-enact the subtle process by which a solid but often unlovely past had thrown its long and often darkening shadow upon an equally solid and apparently sunnier present"(19).These are two quite different impulses.Both may express themselves in a Hawthorne fiction (as they do in The Scarlet Letter),but they make for different focal points and belong to complementary thematic enterprises.One is concerned with the past as past (Hawthorne as regional historian, with New England as seedbed for America),the other with the past's intellectual and affective legacy for its descendants (Hawthorne as cultural anthropologist). Millicent Bell sees Hawthorne's"inquiry into the nature of a past still active in the American present"as "participat[ing]in America's mounting need,in the antebellum period,to understand its early beginnings in order to determine what its unity in diver- sity was coming to mean"(12).My own interest in Hawthorne the This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri,10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
466 Hawthorne and the Problem of New England property and where he later went to college and returned to visit his friend Horatio Bridge. In the 1830s he traveled widely in northern New England during summer or fall vacations. He jour neyed through the White Mountains, still primitive at the time, spent several weeks in the Berkshires, and was deeply appreciative of the "strong, unlettered sense, imbued with humor," that was part of "everybody's talk" in rustic New England (VIII: 94). He also knew Boston intimately, both the city of his own day and the seventeenth-century town he discovered in his antiquarian readings and depicted in The Scarlet Letter. But it was Salem that was "the inevitable centre of the universe" for him (I: 12), loathe it as he professed to do from his post-college years to his return from Europe in 1860, when he dreaded the thought of "spending any time in Salem, or even passing through the wretched old town" (XVIII: 311). "Salem history haunted him," Margaret B. Moore remarked (2), but beyond his fascination with Salem witchcraft?a colorful but scarcely a live issue in the second quarter of the nineteenth century?what was the nature of his engagement with the New England past, specifically the Salem past? "The historical sense," T. S. Eliot remarked, "involves a perception, not only of the past ness of the past"?its difference from ourselves; its over-and doneness?"but of its presence" (49). Hawthorne shared this twofold historical sense. With something like Eliot's "pastness of the past" in mind, Michael J. Colacurcio describes the "intention ... in the best of [Hawthorne's] early tales" as "the wish to recover the affective quality of human lives lived under con ditions or assumptions different from those which prevailed in his own later and more liberal age. Or, alternatively," he adds, echoing Eliot's notion of "presence," it is "the desire to re-enact the subtle process by which a solid but often unlovely past had thrown its long and often darkening shadow upon an equally solid and apparently sunnier present" (19). These are two quite different impulses. Both may express themselves in a Hawthorne fiction (as they do in The Scarlet Letter), but they make for different focal points and belong to complementary thematic enterprises. One is concerned with the past as past (Hawthorne as regional historian, with New England as seedbed for America), the other with the past's intellectual and affective legacy for its descendants (Hawthorne as cultural anthropologist). Millicent Bell sees Hawthorne's "inquiry into the nature of a past still active in the American present" as "particip?t [ing] in America's mounting need, in the antebellum period, to understand its early beginnings in order to determine what its unity in diver sity was coming to mean" (12). My own interest in Hawthorne the This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Literary History 467 anthropologist is more with origins than with congruences,and it locates "the major ligature between culture and literary text"(as Leonard N.Neufeldt said of Thoreau)in "the problem of voca- tion"(24).The man who,as Henry James said,"must have pro- posed to himself to enjoy,simply because he proposed to be an artist,and because this enters inevitably into the artist's scheme," became an anthropologist perforce from the frustrations of living and writing in a society that made small "provision"for enjoying (Hawthorne 24).Describing his 1860 meeting with Hawthorne during his literary pilgrimage to New England,William Dean Howells recalled that Hawthorne "spoke of the New England tem- perament,and suggested that the apparent coldness in it was also real,and that the suppression of emotion for generations would extinguish it at last"(53).Hawthorne was not referring to New England's past so much as to its present and future,and his pro- longed silences and "shadowy kindness,"which made Howells's "spirits sink"(54),testify to the inhibition that afflicted Hawthorne himself,notwithstanding the exhortations to sympathy that run through his work. The enduring "problem of New England"for Hawthorne had little to do with the witch trials except symptomatically or with other remembered (or forgotten)episodes in regional history;as he said in“Alice Doane's Appeal,”“we are a people of the present and have no heartfelt interest in the olden time"(XI:267).2 Practically,as lived experience,the New England past asserted itself for Hawthorne in what history,religion,and climate com- bined to make of the mind and temperament of its inheritors, himself included.New England was the starvation of the senses, New England was the the imagination,the feelings,and the erotic nature consequent on starvation of the senses, living in a post-Puritan world.It was the "conceptual place"that the imagination,the Hawthorne inhabited and,no less important,the "place"that feelings,and the erotic nature consequent on inhabited him. living in a post-Puritan The House of the Seven Gables is my endpoint in this essay world.It was the because it is the culmination of Hawthorne's own engagement “conceptual place”that with Salem,which was both personal ("Salem"as a symbol for Hawthorne inhabited and his twelve years in the family house after college)and cultural ..the“place”that inhabited him. ("Salem"as a miniature of New England civilization).To the extent that the individual life is always lived in and through a culture,the strands are inseparable.Hawthorne himself was deeply aware of how his psychological and vocational conflicts were related to what,as analyst and victim,he understood as a collective regional neurosis.I refer to Seven Gables as an exorcism,but psy- chologically it might be more apt to regard it as a work of self- therapy-and one whose psychic cost,in the end,would arguably rival its benefits. This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri,10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Literary History 467 anthropologist is more with origins than with congruences, and it locates "the major ligature between culture and literary text" (as Leonard N. Neufeldt said of Thoreau) in "the problem of voca tion" (24). The man who, as Henry James said, "must have pro posed to himself to enjoy, simply because he proposed to be an artist, and because this enters inevitably into the artist's scheme," became an anthropologist perforce from the frustrations of living and writing in a society that made small "provision" for enjoying (Hawthorne 24). Describing his 1860 meeting with Hawthorne during his literary pilgrimage to New England, William Dean Howells recalled that Hawthorne "spoke of the New England tem perament, and suggested that the apparent coldness in it was also real, and that the suppression of emotion for generations would extinguish it at last" (53). Hawthorne was not referring to New England's past so much as to its present and future, and his pro longed silences and "shadowy kindness," which made Howells's "spirits sink" (54), testify to the inhibition that afflicted Hawthorne himself, notwithstanding the exhortations to sympathy that run through his work. The enduring "problem of New England" for Hawthorne had little to do with the witch trials except symptomatically or with other remembered (or forgotten) episodes in regional history; as he said in "Alice Doane's Appeal," "we are a people of the present and have no heartfelt interest in the olden time" (XI: 267).2 Practically, as lived experience, the New England past asserted itself for Hawthorne in what history, religion, and climate com bined to make of the mind and temperament of its inheritors, himself included. New England was the starvation of the senses, the imagination, the feelings, and the erotic nature consequent on living in a post-Puritan world. It was the "conceptual place" that Hawthorne inhabited and, no less important, the "place" that inhabited him. The House of the Seven Gables is my endpoint in this essay because it is the culmination of Hawthorne's own engagement with Salem, which was both personal ("Salem" as a symbol for his twelve years in the family house after college) and cultural ("Salem" as a miniature of New England civilization). To the extent that the individual life is always lived in and through a culture, the strands are inseparable. Hawthorne himself was deeply aware of how his psychological and vocational conflicts were related to what, as analyst and victim, he understood as a collective regional neurosis. I refer to Seven Gables as an exorcism, but psy chologically it might be more apt to regard it as a work of self therapy?and one whose psychic cost, in the end, would arguably rival its benefits. New England was the starvation of the senses, the imagination, the feelings, and the erotic nature consequent on living in a post-Puritan world. It was the "conceptual place" that Hawthorne inhabited and ...the "place" that inhabited him. This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
468 Hawthorne and the Problem of New England 1.A Genealogy of New England Morals [Man is]also the generator of the greatest and most disastrous of maladies,of which humanity has not to this day been cured:his sickness of himself,brought on by the violent severance from his animal past,by his sudden leap and fall into new layers and con- ditions of existence,led by his declaration of war against the old instincts that had hitherto been the foundation of his power,his joy,and his awesomeness. Nietzsche,The Genealogy of Morals "The May-Pole of Merry Mount"is anthropologist Hawthorne's myth of New England origins.On one level the tale is about"jollity and gloom"struggling for dominance in the emer- ging New England (IX:54);on another (that of the nuptial pair Edith and Edgar),about the growth of the soul;and on a third, about the inception of civilization in the passage from the pleasure principle to the reality principle.The tale fictionalizes the idea that Freud and others would later theorize about:that culturally,as bio- logically,ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,as the development of the individual replicates that of the race.But the levels of the tale are not neatly parallel;they interpenetrate one another,and in doing so they problematize an allegory already complicated by ambiguity,ambivalence,density of allusion,and a rhetoric of entrapment that invites readers to cast their lot with the sunshine and flowers of Merry Mount only to have them snatched away almost immediately as childish and delusive.Between the maypole and the whipping-post,moreover,the story offers no middle ground.The“grisly saints'”bid to“darken all the clime,and make it a land of clouded visages,of hard toil,and sermon and psalm forever";the "gay sinners"bid to trivialize it (IX:62). The narrative shift from Merry Mount as community to Edith and Edgar seems,if not to evade the problem of history,then at least to redistribute the allegorical weight of the tale from the sociocultural to the moral and psychological.Through the fable of the lovers,the story links itself with other Hawthornean narratives of the soul's journey from an innocence that is ignorance to a sober awareness of life's difficulties.Morally and spiritually,Edith and Edgar's lapse from paradise gives hope of being a fortunate one; like Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost (12.648-49),they leave their Eden to go "heavenward,supporting each other along the difficult path which it was their lot to tread,and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of Merry Mount"(IX:67).Within the tale This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri,10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
468 Hawthorne and the Problem of New England 1. A Genealogy of New England Morals [Man is] also the generator of the greatest and most disastrous of maladies, of which humanity has not to this day been cured: his sickness of himself, brought on by the violent severance from his animal past, by his sudden leap and fall into new layers and con ditions of existence, led by his declaration of war against the old instincts that had hitherto been the foundation of his power, his joy, and his awesomeness. Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals "The May-Pole of Merry Mount" is anthropologist Hawthorne's myth of New England origins. On one level the tale is about "jollity and gloom" struggling for dominance in the emer ging New England (IX: 54); on another (that of the nuptial pair Edith and Edgar), about the growth of the soul; and on a third, about the inception of civilization in the passage from the pleasure principle to the reality principle. The tale fictionalizes the idea that Freud and others would later theorize about: that culturally, as bio logically, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, as the development of the individual replicates that of the race. But the levels of the tale are not neatly parallel; they interpenetrate one another, and in doing so they problematize an allegory already complicated by ambiguity, ambivalence, density of allusion, and a rhetoric of entrapment that invites readers to cast their lot with the sunshine and flowers of Merry Mount only to have them snatched away almost immediately as childish and delusive. Between the maypole and the whipping-post, moreover, the story offers no middle ground. The "grisly saints" bid to "darken all the clime, and make it a land of clouded visages, of hard toil, and sermon and psalm, forever"; the "gay sinners" bid to trivialize it (IX: 62). The narrative shift from Merry Mount as community to Edith and Edgar seems, if not to evade the problem of history, then at least to redistribute the allegorical weight of the tale from the sociocultural to the moral and psychological. Through the fable of the lovers, the story links itself with other Hawthornean narratives of the soul's journey from an innocence that is ignorance to a sober awareness of life's difficulties. Morally and spiritually, Edith and Edgar's lapse from paradise gives hope of being a fortunate one; like Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost (12.648-49), they leave their Eden to go "heavenward, supporting each other along the difficult path which it was their lot to tread, and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of Merry Mount" (IX: 67). Within the tale This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Literary History 469 as moral apologue,history recedes,the "dark Puritans"stand as emblems of "the sternest cares of life"(IX:65),and the ethos of Puritanism itself,as Lawrence Buell remarks,is "associated with something like adult reality,and Merry Mountism"with"a childish indulgence that the mature person has outgrown"(211). But the historical dimension of the tale is too prominent to be allegorized away,and we can never forget that Edith and Edgar will pass their temporal lives in a world presided over by John Endicott,"the severest Puritan of all who laid the rock- foundation of New England"(IX:66).The levels of the plot-his- torical,moral and spiritual,anthropological-thus confound one another.Endicott's conquest of Merry Mount reenacts the mythic originary moment of all civilization,but the event is not an auspi- cious or even a typical one:this civilization will be exceptionally marked by discontents.A communal neurosis-hostile to pleasure, to the senses,and to art-has been implanted in New England life at the very outset,so that the archetypal growth of the soul is forced to occur within culture-specific conditions deeply inhospi- table to it. This con-founding of New England is Hawthorne's unifying theme in "Merry Mount."Yet while he stages the conflict symboli- cally and indicates its consequences,Hawthorne cannot escape its confining terms,the neither/nor of"a wild philosophy of pleasure" (IX:203)and a morbid denial of it.He seems to be hovering around,but unable productively to grasp,two ideas advanced by Herbert Marcuse in his critique of Freud in Eros and Civilization (1955):(l)“surplus-repression,”or the“additional controls'”that a particular society institutes "over and above those indispensable for civilized human association,"and (2)the "performance prin- ciple,"or the dominant form that the reality principle assumes at a given historical moment (32).Inclining,from native skepticism, toward the pole of restraint over that of irresponsible freedom, Hawthorne is forced by the logic of his binary opposition to acquiesce in the Puritan triumph even as he bridles at it.On one side,he portrays the Puritans as "most dismal wretches"who divest the New World of even the lawful "hereditary pastimes of old England"and who scourge and mutilate social offenders (IX: 60);on the other,he presents them as embodiments of the reality principle who live closer to "the sober truths of life"than the gay Merry Mounters (IX:66,60,66).His Puritans thus symbolize both necessary and ultimately desirable social and psychological repression and unnecessary and undesirable surplus repression- the latter imposed on behalf of a historically constructed vision of "reality"that will be transmitted to their descendants as a matrix of cultural being. This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri,10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Literary History 469 as moral apologue, history recedes, the "dark Puritans" stand as emblems of "the sternest cares of life" (IX: 65), and the ethos of Puritanism itself, as Lawrence Buell remarks, is "associated with something like adult reality, and Merry Mountism" with "a childish indulgence that the mature person has outgrown" (211). But the historical dimension of the tale is too prominent to be allegorized away, and we can never forget that Edith and Edgar will pass their temporal lives in a world presided over by John Endicott, "the severest Puritan of all who laid the rock foundation of New England" (IX: 66). The levels of the plot?his torical, moral and spiritual, anthropological?thus confound one another. Endicott's conquest of Merry Mount reenacts the mythic originary moment of all civilization, but the event is not an auspi cious or even a typical one: this civilization will be exceptionally marked by discontents. A communal neurosis?hostile to pleasure, to the senses, and to art?has been implanted in New England life at the very outset, so that the archetypal growth of the soul is forced to occur within culture-specific conditions deeply inhospi table to it. This con-founding of New England is Hawthorne's unifying theme in "Merry Mount." Yet while he stages the conflict symboli cally and indicates its consequences, Hawthorne cannot escape its confining terms, the neither/nor of "a wild philosophy of pleasure" (IX: 203) and a morbid denial of it. He seems to be hovering around, but unable productively to grasp, two ideas advanced by Herbert Marcuse in his critique of Freud in Eros and Civilization (1955): (1) "surplus-repression" or the "additional controls" that a particular society institutes "over and above those indispensable for civilized human association," and (2) the "performance prin ciple" or the dominant form that the reality principle assumes at a given historical moment (32). Inclining, from native skepticism, toward the pole of restraint over that of irresponsible freedom, Hawthorne is forced by the logic of his binary opposition to acquiesce in the Puritan triumph even as he bridles at it. On one side, he portrays the Puritans as "most dismal wretches" who divest the New World of even the lawful "hereditary pastimes of old England" and who scourge and mutilate social offenders (IX: 60); on the other, he presents them as embodiments of the reality principle who live closer to "the sober truths of life" than the gay Merry Mounters (IX: 66, 60, 66). His Puritans thus symbolize both necessary and ultimately desirable social and psychological repression and wraiecessary and undesirable surplus repression? the latter imposed on behalf of a historically constructed vision of "reality" that will be transmitted to their descendants as a matrix of cultural being. This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
470 Hawthorne and the Problem of New England In going beyond his historical sources to emphasize Puritan severity-"Further penalties,such as branding and the cropping of ears,shall be thought of hereafter"(IX:64),Endicott tells his lieutenant-Hawthorne shows how surplus repression leads to a rechanneling of erotic energies into sadism.In "Main-street"the constable who flogs the bare-breasted Quaker woman dragged through town (at the behest of Major Hawthorne)has "a smile upon his lips.He loves his business"(XI:70);and in The Scarlet Letter the Puritan women who chide Hester in the marketplace are punitive in proportion to their ugliness and inferably their sexual frustration.The paradox of repression in "Merry Mount"is that while the curtailment of natural instincts "provides the soil for the growth of what is later called man's soul,"as Nietzsche argues in The Genealogy of Morals,it also generates a"sublimated cruelty resulting from the cooping up of his animal nature"(225).A simple act like Endicott's cropping of Edgar's "love-lock and long glossy curls"(IX:66)is a token of the fury turned against beauty and pleasure,the fury becoming the substitute pleasure. To suggest that Hawthorne understood these things is not to say that he escaped their hold..“Man,”Nietzsche remarked,“has looked for so long with an evil eye upon his natural inclinations that they have finally become inseparable from 'bad conscience'" (228).n“Merry Mount,.”“bad conscience'”-Hawthorne's residual distrust of pleasure and the senses even as he is power- fully drawn toward them-shows itself in the animal imagery he adapts from"Comus"to disparage the revels of the community as descents into bestiality.The Merry Mounters are not genuine inno- cents,they are adults corruptly playing at innocence;but since the story includes no pleasures that are not childish (sanctified courtship-to-marital love excepted),Hawthorne's portrayal has the effect of banishing most "natural inclinations"-"the old mirth of Merry England"as well as "the wilder glee of this fresh forest" (IX:57)from the future New England.Q.D.Leavis finds Hawthorne "subtler and wiser than Milton"in recognizing the disaster"that follows from the unmediated clash of "two partial truths or qualified goods"(35),yet Hawthorne may be more Miltonic than Leavis allows.By accepting "the moral gloom of the world"as an incontestable fact (IX:68),Hawthorne goes far towards conflating a historically bequeathed "performance principle"-the Puritan measure of reality as fallen,somber,toil- some,and care-ridden-with "reality"itself.He has not introjected Puritan beliefs as such;rather,he has imbibed "New England"and naturalized its coordinates of experience even as he rejects the theology that shaped them and the social practices and demeanors they produce. This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri,10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
470 Hawthorne and the Problem of New England In going beyond his historical sources to emphasize Puritan severity?"Further penalties, such as branding and the cropping of ears, shall be thought of hereafter" (IX: 64), Endicott tells his lieutenant?Hawthorne shows how surplus repression leads to a rechanneling of erotic energies into sadism. In "Main-street" the constable who flogs the bare-breasted Quaker woman dragged through town (at the behest of Major Hawthorne) has "a smile upon his lips. He loves his business" (XI: 70); and in The Scarlet Letter the Puritan women who chide Hester in the marketplace are punitive in proportion to their ugliness and inferably their sexual frustration. The paradox of repression in "Merry Mount" is that while the curtailment of natural instincts "provides the soil for the growth of what is later called man's soul, " as Nietzsche argues in The Genealogy of Morals, it also generates a "sublimated cruelty resulting from the cooping up of his animal nature" (225). A simple act like Endicott's cropping of Edgar's "love-lock and long glossy curls" (IX: 66) is a token of the fury turned against beauty and pleasure, the fury becoming the substitute pleasure. To suggest that Hawthorne understood these things is not to say that he escaped their hold. "Man," Nietzsche remarked, "has looked for so long with an evil eye upon his natural inclinations that they have finally become inseparable from 'bad conscience'" (228). In "Merry Mount," "bad conscience"?Hawthorne's residual distrust of pleasure and the senses even as he is power fully drawn toward them?shows itself in the animal imagery he adapts from "Comus" to disparage the revels of the community as descents into bestiality. The Merry Mounters are not genuine inno cents, they are adults corruptly playing at innocence; but since the story includes no pleasures that are not childish (sanctified courtship-to-marital love excepted), Hawthorne's portrayal has the effect of banishing most "natural inclinations"?"the old mirth of Merry England" as well as "the wilder glee of this fresh forest" (IX: 57)?from the future New England. Q. D. Leavis finds Hawthorne "subtler and wiser than Milton" in recognizing the "disaster" that follows from the unmediated clash of "two partial truths or qualified goods" (35), yet Hawthorne may be more Miltonic than Leavis allows. By accepting "the moral gloom of the world" as an incontestable fact (IX: 68), Hawthorne goes far towards conflating a historically bequeathed "performance principle"?the Puritan measure of reality as fallen, somber, toil some, and care-ridden?with "reality" itself. He has not introjected Puritan beliefs as such; rather, he has imbibed "New England" and naturalized its coordinates of experience even as he rejects the theology that shaped them and the social practices and demeanors they produce. This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Literary History 471 "The May-pole of Merry Mount"is a relatively early work, accomplished as art yet lacking what Giles Gunn calls"a norma- tive perspective outside of culture from which and by means of which to criticize the products created within it"(23).Although Hawthorne can "think across culture"to the extent that he deplores its repressive "valuations"(Gunn 1),past and present,he is still enmeshed within culture in his core assumptions about human life. Without a vocabulary for cultural analysis or a broad comparativist view of history,he can feel the desirability but not conceive the possibility of a minimally repressive society in which the life of the senses would be shorn of culturally rooted guilt.Beneath the overt levels of the tale-those on which the writer is in command of his materials-the "problem of New England"in "The May-pole of Merry Mount"is the problem of Hawthorne's con- finement in thinking about New England. 2.Recentering the New England Past So stern was the energy of his aspect,that the whole man, visage,frame,and soul,seemed wrought of iron,gifted with life and thought,yet all of one substance with his head-piece and breast-plate.It was the Puritan of Puritans;It was Endicott himself! Hawthorne,"The May-pole of Merry Mount" In an 1833 oration delivered in Salem,"The Importance of Illustrating New-England History By a Series of Romances like the Waverley Novels,"Rufus Choate argued for the power of fiction to animate the barebones "facts,the lessons,of history"and infuse them into consciousness of the people.Choate warned, however,that as "no age is heroic of which the whole truth is recorded,"the wise romancer will cultivate only "the useful truth" and allow the rest "to putrefy or be burned"(338,340).The larger question for Choate,as Lawrence Buell observed of ante-bellum historical writers generally,was what to do with a Puritan ancestry, a fount of regional pride and proclaimed national pre-eminence insofar as the Puritan resistance to tyranny was taken to prefigure the American Revolution,but a source,too,of embarrassment, even of shame,since these ardent champions of liberty were also vigorous persecutors themselves (see Buell 193-213). The campaign to purge the New England legacy of Puritan punitiveness began much earlier,in 1769,with the chauvinism of This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri,10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
American Literary History "The May-pole of Merry Mount" is a relatively early work, accomplished as art yet lacking what Giles Gunn calls "a norma tive perspective outside of culture from which and by means of which to criticize the products created within it" (23). Although Hawthorne can "think across culture" to the extent that he deplores its repressive "valuations" (Gunn 1), past and present, he is still enmeshed within culture in his core assumptions about human life. Without a vocabulary for cultural analysis or a broad comparativist view of history, he can feel the desirability but not conceive the possibility of a minimally repressive society in which the life of the senses would be shorn of culturally rooted guilt. Beneath the overt levels of the tale?those on which the writer is in command of his materials?the "problem of New England" in "The May-pole of Merry Mount" is the problem of Hawthorne's con finement in thinking about New England. 2. Recentering the New England Past So stern was the energy of his aspect, that the whole man, visage, frame, and soul, seemed wrought of iron, gifted with life and thought, yet all of one substance with his head-piece and breast-plate. It was the Puritan of Puritans; It was Endicott himself! Hawthorne, "The May-pole of Merry Mount" In an 1833 oration delivered in Salem, "The Importance of Illustrating New-England History By a Series of Romances like the Waverley Novels," Rufus Choate argued for the power of fiction to animate the barebones "facts, the lessons, of history" and infuse them into consciousness of the people. Choate warned, however, that as "no age is heroic of which the whole truth is recorded," the wise romancer will cultivate only "the useful truth" and allow the rest "to putrefy or be burned" (338, 340). The larger question for Choate, as Lawrence Buell observed of ante-bellum historical writers generally, was what to do with a Puritan ancestry, a fount of regional pride and proclaimed national pre-eminence insofar as the Puritan resistance to tyranny was taken to prefigure the American Revolution, but a source, too, of embarrassment, even of shame, since these ardent champions of liberty were also vigorous persecutors themselves (see Buell 193-213). The campaign to purge the New England legacy of Puritan punitiveness began much earlier, in 1769, with the chauvinism of This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
472 Hawthorne and the Problem of New England Plymouth elders trying to raise the fortunes of a town that social, economic,and political history had made a regional backwater.In Imagining New England (2001),Joseph A.Conforti shows how, accelerating in the 1790s with Jeremy Belknap's American Biography,or An Historical Account of Those Persons who Have Been Distinguished in America (1794,1798)and again in 1820 with Daniel Webster's bicentennial address in Plymouth,New Englanders seized on the historical neologism "Pilgrims"and glori- fied the legacy of Plymouth in order to create"a narrative of repub- lican beginnings unencumbered by the Puritan record of intolerance"(182).As Plymouth waxed in New England's and later in America's mythmaking,Massachusetts Bay waned,or at least was subsumed to "a powerful discourse of Plymouth-republican origins"that served,in Conforti's phrase,"to Pilgrimize the Puritans”(l89)and,in Choate's,to disseminate a“useful truth.” In dramatizing the story of Merry Mount,Hawthorne reverses the thrust of contemporary historiography on both counts;he Puritanizes the Pilgrims and excavates the kind of matter Choate sought to bury.Far from being a cradle of American liberty, Plymouth is alluded to only as a nearby "settlement of Puritans" (IX:60),and its agent in routing the Merry Mounters is the Salemite John Endicott,whose community Edith and Edgar(representatives of the future New England)will presumably join.The identic locus of New England has been reclaimed for Massachusetts Bay and its founding village,Salem,an "anti-Plymouth"associated with liberty (the Puritans fled from King and Church)but also,definingly,with intolerance and repression. Hawthorne portrays this double legacy in another tale, "Endicott and the Red Cross,"which Michael Davitt Bell rightly calls an account of"the symbolic birth of the American character" (57).In a moment of New England crisis,John Endicott ("for ever honored be"his name!)steps forth to cut the symbol of England, and of Royal tyranny,"from New England's banner,the first omen of the deliverance which our fathers consummated"nearly a century and a half later (IX:441).The story begins and ends with filiopietist orthodoxy;much of the rest is open heterodoxy-a litany of Puritan persecutions and punishments,among them a scarlet A affixed to the gown of a beautiful young adulteress. "Was it not for liberty to worship God according to our con- science"that we came to this land,Endicott proclaims to the crowd.“Call you this liberty of conscience?”replies a“Wanton Gospeller,"whose offense is to read scripture other than as the ministers and magistrates see fit (IX:439,435). Bell takes the story as a judicious historical representation of the two faces of Endicott (liberator and persecutor)as they This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri,10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
472 Hawthorne and the Problem of New England Plymouth elders trying to raise the fortunes of a town that social, economic, and political history had made a regional backwater. In Imagining New England (2001), Joseph A. Conforti shows how, accelerating in the 1790s with Jeremy Belknap's American Biography y or An Historical Account of Those Persons who Have Been Distinguished in America (1794, 1798) and again in 1820 with Daniel Webster's bicentennial address in Plymouth, New Englanders seized on the historical neologism "Pilgrims" and glori fied the legacy of Plymouth in order to create "a narrative of repub lican beginnings unencumbered by the Puritan record of intolerance" (182). As Plymouth waxed in New England's and later in America's mythmaking, Massachusetts Bay waned, or at least was subsumed to "a powerful discourse of Plymouth-republican origins" that served, in Conforti's phrase, "to Pilgrimize the Puritans" (189) and, in Choate's, to disseminate a "useful truth." In dramatizing the story of Merry Mount, Hawthorne reverses the thrust of contemporary historiography on both counts; he Puritanizes the Pilgrims and excavates the kind of matter Choate sought to bury. Far from being a cradle of American liberty, Plymouth is alluded to only as a nearby "settlement of Puritans" (DC: 60), and its agent in routing the Merry Mounters is the Salemite John Endicott, whose community Edith and Edgar (representatives of the future New England) will presumably join. The identic locus of New England has been reclaimed for Massachusetts Bay and its founding village, Salem, an "anti-Plymouth" associated with liberty (the Puritans fled from King and Church) but also, definingly, with intolerance and repression. Hawthorne portrays this double legacy in another tale, "Endicott and the Red Cross," which Michael Davitt Bell rightly calls an account of "the symbolic birth of the American character" (57). In a moment of New England crisis, John Endicott ("for ever honored be" his name!) steps forth to cut the symbol of England, and of Royal tyranny, "from New England's banner, the first omen of the deliverance which our fathers consummated" nearly a century and a half later (IX: 441). The story begins and ends with filiopietist orthodoxy; much of the rest is open heterodoxy?a litany of Puritan persecutions and punishments, among them a scarlet A affixed to the gown of a beautiful young adulteress. "Was it not for liberty to worship God according to our con science" that we came to this land, Endicott proclaims to the crowd. "Call you this liberty of conscience?" replies a "Wanton Gospeller," whose offense is to read scripture other than as the ministers and magistrates see fit (IX: 439, 435). Bell takes the story as a judicious historical representation of the two faces of Endicott (liberator and persecutor) as they This content downloaded from 202.120.14.172 on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:39:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
