I had a difficult time settling on a topic for my research project until we went over the preface of The Blithedale Romance last week. In the preface Hawthorne claims that other than the setting there was no relation between the Brook Farm community, and Blithedale. I found that a little hard to believe and decided it would be worth researching if there were any similarities between the people involved at Brook Farm and the characters of the novel.
I think that more often than not fictional characters are based in some capacity on real people. So even though Hawthorn claims that there is no relationship between the characters and the real people I think that there are likely similarities, if not direct relationships between the two.
I feel that this research will be interesting from a historical perspective, and also from the stand point of the novel. If there turns out that certain characters in the novel were actually based on real life people, it will help me to understand the book in a whole new light. If however, there are no similarities, it would be almost equally as interesting to contrast the differences between the two groups.
So far the research looks promising, and I can't wait to get some good information to share in my next post
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2 comments:
I stumbled on some interesting information on the characters according to this one book:
Priscilla - Supposedly a washed up version of his wife Sophia.
Zenobia - Based on Margaret Fuller, which Sophia denied for many years.
Hollingsworth - Combination of Willian Henry Channing (a dabbbler in Brook Farm, who preached in the woods and was a prison reformer that was attracted to a lot of women), Sophia (his wife), Samuel Gridley Howe and Horace Mann. The name Hollingsworth is from a distant relative.
Coverdale - Hawthorne himself.
The book doesn't go into that much more detail about them though. Good luck with your research.
Wineapple, Brenda. A Life of Hawthorne. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
Yeah, there's a ton of stuff that correlated between the novel and Brook Farm. I guess the question now is why Hawthorne would write a book with all of these similarities and at the same time tell us not to read the book as if it's a work of fiction. I found that primary sources are the best place to get all of the personal accounts about Brook Farm.
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