Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Literary Genius

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Nathaniel Hawthorne was a great writer of the nineteenth century. To this day, his works continue to be widely read and highly regarded. He was a great writer and wrote about themes that are timeless and could be understood by people in his time as well as today (Diorio 134-135). His use of literary devices such as symbolism, irony, fantasy and illusion made his works very entertaining and powerful. He was said to be a “literary genius” (Diorio 134).
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. He was born with the last name Hathorne but he added the w to his last name when he started writing (Clendenning 114). His father died when he was four years old and the family went to live with his uncle in Salem. In 1825, he graduated from Bowdoin College. By this time, he had already completed his first work, Fanshawe. Hawthorne wanted to become a fictional writer but he only had been a good writer of compositions. He spent years in his uncle’s house writing, reading and trying to get published. He wrote many tales. Some of these were published in magazines or annuals. Since he didn’t make a lot of money for this, he had to find other work to support himself. He spent time working at the Boston Custom House and he was a member of the Brook Farm community in Boston (Waggoner 6-7).
In 1842, he married Sophia Peabody and moved to Old Manse in Concord Massachusetts. After several years, due to financial difficulties, they moved back to Salem. It was here that Hawthorne began to write one of his greatest novels, The Scarlet Letter. This was a turning point for Hawthorne and made him famous. After this, he was financially stable and was able to focus totally on his writing (Waggoner 7-8). Hawthorne died on May 18, 1964 ...

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