pinioiis ec V m-inInnate Depravity & the Nature of MannJames R. Mellow: Nathaniel Hawthornenin His Times; Houghton MifflinnCo.; Boston.nby Stephen L. TannernWh ile I was reading a historicalnmarker near Harvard University recently,na young man in the uniform of youthncult—that is, in calculated dishabille andndisplaying a conspicuous lack of personalnhygiene—stepped to the marker and,nseemingly oblivious of the crowd of pedestriansnabout us, urinated against it. Inhad just come from the LongfellownHouse, stopping to browse at the bookstoresnand magazine stands near HarvardnStation. After reading James R.nMellow’s excellent portrait of Hawthornenand his times, I cannot help butnwonder how Hawthorne would react tonan excursion similar to mine. I suspectnhe would consider himself to be in ancountry more foreign to him than any henvisited in Europe.nWhile it is idle to speculate on hownHawthorne would respond to the dress,nbehavior and printed matter presentlynencountered near Harvard Square, it isnnot idle to reflect upon how our culturenresponds to him. To do so may help usnbetter to understand ourselves and ournliterary values.nHawthorne’s place among the greatnAmerican authors is secure. But there isnsomething a little puzzling about thisnin light of the fact that he was essentiallyna Puritan and today’s liberal culture isnself-consciously anti-Puritan. RandallnStewart refers to him as “perhaps thenPuritan of Puritans among the greatnAmerican writers.” He was not Puritannin Mencken’s flippant sense of beingnhaunted by the fear “that someone,nsomewhere may be happy.” That definitionnmerely trivializes a serious matter.nAnd he was not a Puritan in the sense ofnDr. Tanner is professor of English atnBrigham Young University.n6nChronicles of Culturenadhering to Puritan dogma. He oftenncriticized that dogma, and he clearlyncame down hard on the bigotry, intolerancenand cruelty of the old Puritans.nNevertheless, his stories had a way ofntaking the Puritan side. As Mark VannDoren pointed out, “Hawthorne did notnneed to believe in Puritanism in ordernto write a great novel about it. He hadnto understand it, which for a man of hisntime was harder.” (And it is perhapsneven harder for a man of our time.)nWhen Hawthorne criticized the Puritans,nhe did so within their own framenof reference, for their spiritual pridenand lack of charity, which preventednthem from achieving the very goals tonwhich they aspired. He did not ignorenthem as his transcendentalist friendsndid, nor did he dismiss their problemsnas unreal.nHawthorne’s Puritanism manifests itselfnin a vein of asceticism, of restraint,nof discipline. An assumption of humannimperfection is evident, along with thenrecognition of the long discipline requirednfor human improvement. Melville,nin speaking of “the power ofnblackness” he perceived in Hawthorne’snfiction, says it derives its force fromnsome appeal to the Calvinistic sense ofninnate depravity, “from whose visitation,nin some shape or other, no deeplynthinking mind is always and whollynfree.” But when Hawthorne seems closestnto Puritanism, he is also closest tonclassic Christianity, to the fundamentalnview of man’s relation to Godnexpressed by Christian writers from St.nPaul to Paul Tillich. Hyatt H. Waggoner’snassessment is correct: “Hawthorne’snsensibility was primarily religious, andn-CffiL_nnnhis instinct was for the central catholicntradition of Christian humanism.”nAn irony that emerges in sorting outnwhat constitutes Puritanism is that frequentlynits avowed enemies clearly bearnthe stamp of its most negative aspects:nintolerance, self-righteousness and lacknof a sense of humor. The old PuritannFathers would be hard pressed to outdonthe humorless adherence to dogma andnintolerant rigidity of some of our anti-nPuritan reformers. And as EdmundnFuller once demonstrated in an essayntitled “The Revival of Total Depravity,”nthe difference between the naturalisticnview of man in some contemporarynwriters and the extreme Calvinistic viewnis more apparent than real.n1 like to think that most readers ofnHawthorne are engaged by the quality ofnhis moral imagination and see his worknas a significant criticism of life. Butnthere are other ways to read and praisenHawthorne, and we must be aware ofnthem in order to understand why he isnrespected by members of the liberalnculture who have little taste for hisnPuritanism.nOne way to approach it is to focusnupon the aesthetic aspects of his fiction.nHawthorne was a careful artist and usedna great deal of functional imagery andnsymbolism. Modern criticism, so muchnattuned to image, symbol and allegory,nhas found his method particularly congenial.nTextbooks introducing fictionninevitably include Hawthorne storiesnbecause they obviously and consistentlynuse the patterns formalistic criticismnlooks for. The remarkable accumulationnof Hawthorne criticism since the 1940’snis a lasting achievement of the NewnCritical period in literary study. Unfortunately,nthe quantity of sophisticatednmultiple interpretations is so large thatnit intimidates the reader or exhausts himnto the point that he has no energy leftnto form his own personal response.nMoreover, much of this criticism losesn