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Anne Dalke's picture

Week 10--The Scarlet Letter as Autobiography?

Submitted by Anne Dalke on Fri, 03/28/2008 - 9:25am
We ended our last class with this passage from "The Custom House," Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Introductory to The Scarlet Letter":

"we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this extent and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without violating either the reader's rights or his own."

So... What are the rights of the reader?
What are the rights of an author?
What happens to our understanding (and experience) of The Scarlet Letter if we read it as an example of the genre of autobiography?
What are the characteristics of an autobiography?
If this novel...
um, romance...
um, autobiography...
is one, then in whom do you think Nathaniel Hawthorne represents himself? Why?
(Feel free to substitute any other question here!)

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