Sunday, July 20, 2008
What's the Big Idea?!
So when coming up with a research topic I decided that doing my paper on Transcendentalism in Blithedale might be a good avenue since Brook Farm and Blithedale both had roots in the movement. However, with further thought I began to wonder on what level is the book a social commentary at all? What was Hawthorne's purpose for writing this novel? He says in the Preface that he is making no judgments on socialism at all. But as in the case with Coverdale, I find it hard to take to heart everything that Hawthorne says. So as of now my topic is Transcendentalism. Maybe it will change to socialism. Or maybe it will encompass some aspect of both or more. Who knows at this point where my reading will take me.
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4 comments:
It sounds like you're having some of the same thoughts I am having right now. Although I think I have some notion of the historical context (including Transcendetalism) surrounding the book, it's not entirely clear to me at this point how I'll turn it into a persuasive argument about the novel. I'm gathering as much information as I can right now and hoping I can find something interesting enough to turn into a research paper.
I am also trying to find out what Hawthorne's intention was in writing The Blithedale Romance. I found out he added the Preface after he wrote the entire novel, so maybe he decided against making any judgement on socialism only after writing the novel. There seems to be so many themes throughout the book (socialism, feminism, selfishness, etc.) that it is hard to figure out what Hawthorne is focusing on.
While I was reading the novel the primary thing I kept thinking about was the socialism aspect of the book. I figured that Hawthorne was trying to make statements about socialism and I was surprised by what he said in the preface. This should turn into a great topic to research.
I was surfing on wikipedia, and I found that Hawthorne and a lot of the Transcendentalists were big on Dark Romanticism. I don't really know what they mean by it, but maybe that's an avenue to go down. You can do a research project on why the Transcendentalists started this movement in writing and how the novel fits into this writing style.
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