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The Marble Faun - Volume 2

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Book Overview: 

The Marble Faun is Hawthorne's most unusual romance. Writing on the eve of the American Civil War, Hawthorne set his story in a fantastical Italy. The romance mixes elements of a fable, pastoral, gothic novel, and travel guide. Hawthorne was inspired to write his romance when he saw the Faun of Praxiteles in a Roman sculpture gallery. The theme, characteristic of Hawthorne, is guilt and the Fall of Man. The four main characters are Miriam, a beautiful painter who is compared to Eve, Beatrice Cenci, Lady Macbeth, Judith, and Cleopatra, and is being pursued by a mysterious, threatening Model; Hilda, an innocent copyist who is compared to the Virgin Mary; Kenyon, a sculptor, who represents rationalist humanism; and Donatello, the Count of Monti Beni, who is compared to Adam, resembles the Faun of Praxiteles, and is probably only half human.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .Whatever the dream may be, I am too genuine a coward to act out my own death in it."

The paroxysm passed away, and the two friends continued their desultory talk, very much as if no such interruption had occurred. Nevertheless, it affected the sculptor with infinite pity to see this young man, who had been born to gladness as an assured heritage, now involved in a misty bewilderment of grievous thoughts, amid which he seemed to go staggering blindfold. Kenyon, not without an unshaped suspicion of the definite fact, knew that his condition must have resulted from the weight and gloom of life, now first, through the agency of a secret trouble, making themselves felt on a character that had heretofore breathed only an atmosphere of joy. The effect of this hard lesson, upon Donatello's intellect and disposition, was very striking. It was perceptible that he had already had glimpses of strange and subtle matters in those dark caverns, into which all men must descend. . . Read More

Community Reviews

In middle school you were probably assigned some kind of descriptive composition. You know, the kind where you pick a Classroom Object -- a pencil, a wad of gum, your English teacher's unconvincing toupee -- and you write about it for a couple hundred words, sparing no meticulous detail. You turn th

The Marble Faun is a gothic romance from the period when ‘romance’ meant ‘not as serious as a proper novel’. It’s a strange, moody tale with a lot of loose ends and uncertainty, which I think many modern readers would find difficult. However, I know I’m not the only one who enjoys that sort of thing

Σε μια Ρώμη όπου η πραγματικότητα και ο μύθος απέχουν ελάχιστα μεταξύ τους, και με έντονη γοτθική ατμόσφαιρα ο Hawthorne ξεναγεί τον αναγνώστη στα σημαντικότερα ιστορικά μνημεία της πόλης, ενώ παράλληλα παρουσιάζει μερικά από τα σημαντικότερα έργα τέχνης που βρίσκονται σε αυτή.

Ο συγγραφέας περιγράφ

The only one of Hawthorne's four major novels not set in his native Massachusetts, The Marble Faun takes place instead in Italy (though three of the four major characters are expatriate American artists). His tenure as American consul in Liverpool, England from 1853-57 had brought him and his family

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