Nathaniel Hawthorne Transcendentalism

During the nineteenth century, some of the most renowned classics of contemporary American literature were written by history’s most cherished writers, one of them being Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne was a dark romantic writer who spent a great deal of time in the company of several other influential writers of his time, many of whom were transcendentalists. Although Hawthorne himself was not a transcendentalist, he lived in community with several of them, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and the Alcott family in Concord, Massachusetts (“Nathaniel”). However, Hawthorne was exposed to transcendentalist views even before this. For six months in 1841, he was a resident at the experimental utopian community of Brook Farm, which

In fact, he chose the title of the novel because, according to him, his time at Brook Farm was “the most romantic episode of his life” (Hawthorne, IV). Additionally, the setting, characters, and events of the novel are based mainly on Brook Farm, its residents, and events that occurred while Hawthorne was there. The setting of the novel is the Blithedale Farm, an agrarian commune whose inhabitants cultivate the land. The protagonist, Coverdale, is the representation of Hawthorne and his doubts about the success of the experiment, as well as his disappointment at not having the time to write (Turner, 43). Zenobia, another main character, is said to be a prototype of Margaret Fuller. “Like Margaret Fuller, Zenobia had written stories and tracts ‘in defense of her sex’ and had made lectures on the stage, and she was determined to continue advocating women’s rights” (Turner, 49). The character of Hollingsworth embodies the traits of multiple men that Hawthorne knew, including George Ripley’s unsuccessful attempts to convince others of his ideals (Turner, 50). Events in the novel that parallel reality can first be found in Coverdale’s arrival at Blithedale in an April snowstorm, which correspond exactly with the conditions that Hawthorne arrived at Brook Farm in (Turner, 54). Other smaller accounts found in