Transcendentalist Codes In Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter
Transcendentalist Codes in
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
By Gh.Rostampour
Discovering Transcendentalism as a movement that supports the
conviction that divinity can be found in all things, Hawthorne
deliberately represents his personal beliefs and observes all the
ethics of transcendentalism in The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel
Hawthorne who had been brought up in a puritanical society with its
rigid laws tried to blend his favor upon transcendentalist ideas with
his religious thought together in his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter.
At first we have to know some about Transcendentalism and its
meaning, also the relation between Hawthorne and it. In philosophy
and literature Transcendentalism defines as “a belief in a higher
kind of knowledge than achieved by human reason.” It was strongly
influenced by Deism which was opposed to Calvinist orthodoxy.
Transcendentalism rejects the Puritan religious attitudes and it
opposes the strict ritualism and dogmatic theology of all religions.
It was also influenced by romanticism for example in the ideas of
self-reliance, the respect of individualism and the admiration of the
nature and humankind. In this way transcendentalists saw a direct
connection between the universe (macrocosm) and the individual soul
(microcosm), so according to this concept intuition, rather than
reason, is regarded as the highest human faculty.
Kant taught the doctrine that instead of looking for evidence
of a Supreme Being in the external world, we should seek him
in our own hearts; that every man could find a revelation in
his own conscience,-- in the consciousness of good and evil,...
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