Hawthorne's Transplanting and Transforming "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Abstract

Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel House of Seven Gables (1851) has long been recognized as having affinity with Edgar Allan Poe's tale The Fall of House of (1839), especially with regard to setting and characters;(1) reader may therefore wonder if Hawthorne's preceding novel, Scarlet Letter (1850), also possesses affinity with Poe tale. In early review of Scarlet Letter (April 1, 1850), George Ripley noted several parallels between Hawthorne and Poe: the same terrible excitement . . . same minuteness of finish - same slow and fatal accumulation of details, same exquisite coolness of coloring, while everything creeps forward with irresistible certainty to soul-harrowing climax. Then he qualified his observation, noting Hawthorne's softening of supernatural. But while he quoted amply from Scarlet Letter, he did not go on to identify specific related Poe tale.(2) Yet Ripley's general observation may be taken as encouragement search correspondence between Scarlet Letter and work of fiction by Poe. Such search is rewarded, evidence suggests that even as Hawthorne may have rebuilt House of Usher House of Seven Gables, he also transplanted The Tell-Tale Heart Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne certainly would have read The Tell-Tale Heart - it appeared in first issue (January 1843) of James Russell Lowell's literary magazine, Pioneer, published in Boston. Lowell had visited Hawthorne in Concord to solicit contributions this magazine, and in lead review in first issue, Lowell favorably discussed Hawthorne's Historical Tales Youth.(3) high regard Poe's creative work that Hawthorne would have brought to his reading of The Tell-Tale Heart is clear from The of Fantasy, written in fall of 1842 and published in second issue of Pioneer (February 1843): Hawthorne includes Poe in select company of poets and writers in Hall of Fantasy for sake of his imagination (though he threatens him with ejectment his criticism).(4) Hawthorne would have been reminded of Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart as he read that second issue of Lowell's magazine, comments on Poe's tale appeared there in three reprinted reviews of Pioneer's first issue. These comments were striking. In his New York Tribune review, Horace Greeley wrote with mixture of admiration and distaste that The Tell-Tale Heart was a strong and skilful, but to our minds overstrained and repulsive analysis of feelings and promptings of insane homicide. In Boston Bay State Democrat review, critic asserted that tale was an article of thrilling interest. And in his Brother Jonathan review, N. P. Willis remarked with unmixed admiration Poe's tale that Mr. Poe's contribution is very wild and very readable, and that is only thing in number that most people would read and remember.(5) Hawthorne might later have been reminded of The Tell-Tale Heart by additional appearances of work; story was published in Philadelphia's United States Gazette and its Dollar Newspaper in 1843 and New York's Broadway Journal and Philadelphia's Spirit of Times in 1845.(6) In years following first publication of The Tell-Tale Heart, Hawthorne maintained his high opinion of Poe's fiction and lower one of his criticism. In June 17, 1846 letter to Poe, initially concerning Mosses from Old Manse (a copy of which he had directed to Poe), Hawthorne wrote, I admire you rather as writer of Tales, than as critic upon them, and he went on to apply to Poe's tales two terms that Poe had applied to Hawthorne's tales in May 1842 review: force and originality (CE 16:168).(7) Hawthorne could well have had The Tell-Tale Heart in mind in late September 1849 as he began work in earnest on Scarlet Letter;(8) in any case he would soon have had unexpected but compelling reason to recall Poe tales he admired: on October 7, 1849, Poe died. …