Nathaniel Hawthorne strana 8 z 9

In the final years of the seventeenth century in a small New England town, the venerable Colonel Pyncheon decides to erect a ponderously oak-framed and spacious family mansion. It occupies the spot where Matthew Maule, `an obscure man', had lived in a log hut, until his execution for witchcraft. From the scaffold, Maule points his finger at the presiding Colonel and cries `God will give him blood to drink!' The fate of Colonel Pyncheon exerts a heavy influence on his descendants in the crumbling mansion for the next century and a half. Hawthorne called his novel a `Romance', drawing on the Gothic tradition which embraced and exploited the thrills of the supernatural. Unlike The Scarlet Letter, with its unrelentingly dark view of human natur e and guilt, Hawthorne sought to write `a more natural and healthy product of my mind', a story which would show guilt to be a trick of the imagination. The tension between fantasy and a new realism underpins the novel's descriptive virtuosity.

any narrative of human action and adventure - whether we call it history or Romance - is certain to be a fragile handiwork, more easily rent than mended' The fragility - and the durability - of human life and art dominate this story of American expat riates in Italy in the mid-nineteenth century. Befriended by Donatello, a young Italian with the classical grace of the 'Marble Faun', Miriam, Hilda, and Kenyon find their pursuit of art taking a sinister turn as Miriam's unhappy past precipitates th e present into tragedy. Hawthorne's 'International Novel' dramatizes the confrontation of the Old World and the New and the uncertain relationship between the 'authentic' and the 'fake', in life as in art. The author's evocative descriptions of class ic sites made The Marble Faun a favourite guidebook to Rome for Victorian tourists, but this richly ambiguous symbolic romance is also the story of a murder, and a parable of the Fall of Man. As the characters find their civilized existence disrupted by the awful consequences of impulse, Hawthorne leads his readers to question the value of Art and Culture and addresses the great evolutionary debate which was beginning to shake Victorian society.

Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. With these chilling words a husband claims his wife after a two-year absence. But the child she clutches is not his, and Hester wears a scarlet "A" upon her breast, the sign of adultery visible to all. Under an assumed name, her husband begins his vindictive search for her lover, determined to expose what Hester is equally determined to protect. Defiant and proud, Hester witnesses the degradation of two very different men, as moral codes and legal imperatives painfully collide. Set in the Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, The Scarlet Letter also sheds light on the nineteenth century in which it was written, as Hawthorne explores his ambivalent relations with his Puritan forebears. The text of this edition is taken from the Centenary Edition of Hawthorne's works, the most authoritative critical edition. It includes a new, wide-ranging introduction that sheds light on the novel's autobiographical, historical, and literary contexts, a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography, and thorough notes that provide essential information on Puritan and nineteenth-century life. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Mladá žena, jej zbabelý milenec a starnúci pomstychtivý manžel - to sú hlavné postavy tejto drámy o konflikte medzi láskou a konvenciami v puritánskej Amerike. Majstrovsky spracované dielo sa stalo námetom na rovnomenný film v hlavnej úlohe s Demi Moore. Film však nemôže v celej šírke zachytiť atmosféru diela, takže knihu sa oplatí prečítať aj tým, ktorí film videli. (130x205, 238 strán, TV, ČB, r. vyd. 2006)

Hester Prynne is a young wife who has sinned in the eyes of her society. In the rigid moral climate of 17th-century New England, she endures a harsh punishment. Hester has to draw on her inner strength of spirit. She is one of the finest heroines of American fiction. This American classic is a troubling story of crime, sin, guilt and punishment.

Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne´s concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly dis

Scarlet is the colour of sin, and the letter 'A' stands for 'Adultery'. In the 1600s, in Boston, Massachusetts, love was allowed only between a husband and a wife. A child born outside marriage was a child of sin. Hester Prynne must wear the scarlet letter on her dress for the rest of her life. How can she ever escape from this public shame? What will happen to her child, growing up in the shadow of the scarlet letter? The future holds no joy for Hester Prynne. And what will happen to her sinful lover - the father of her child?

Scarlet is the colour of sin, and the letter 'A' stands for 'Adultery'. In the 1600s, in Boston, Massachusetts, love was allowed only between a husband and a wife. A child born outside marriage was a child of sin. Hester Prynne must wear the scarlet letter on her dress for the rest of her life. How can she ever escape from this public shame? What will happen to her child, growing up in the shadow of the scarlet letter? The future holds no joy for Hester Prynne. And what will happen to her sinful lover - the father of her child?

'A sudden passion of anxious impatience rushed through my veins and gave me such a sense of the intensity of existence as I have never felt before or since.'link title to catalogue entry](exact date?)Written in 1915, The Shadow-Line is based upon events and experiences from twenty-seven years earlier to which Conrad returned obsessively in his fiction. A young sea captain's first command brings with it a succession of crises: his sea is becalmed, the crew laid low by fever, and his deranged first mate is convinced that the ship is haunted by the malignant spirit of a previous captain.This is indeed a work full of 'sudden passions', in which Conrad is able to show how the full intensity of existence can be experienced by the man who, in the words of the older Captain Giles, is prepared to 'stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience'. A subtle and penetrating analysis of the nature of manhood, The Shadow-Line investigates varieties of masculinity and desire in a subtext that counterpoints the tale's seemingly conventional surface.

A dramatic, moving depiction of social defiance and social deference, of passion and human frailty. Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveal s Nathaniel Hawthorne's concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale stands as a classic study of a seld divided; trapped by the rules of society, he suppresses his passion and disavows his lover, Hester, and their daughter, Pearl.

Shining examples of American literature at its best, these four novels explore timeless themes adventure, war, sex, and morality through compelling narratives. An adulteress, a runaway boy, a terrified soldier, and a maltreated sailor the heroes of these novels have become a part of popular culture. This indispensable volume includes "The Scarlet Letter "by Nathaniel Hawthorne "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "by Mark Twain "The Red Badge of Courage "by Stephen Crane "Billy Budd "by Herman Melville With an Introduction by Sandra Newman".

Márványszerű hidegsége nagyrészt abból eredt, hogy élete a szenvedély világától a gondolkodás felé kanyarodott. Egyedül állt a földön, elszakítva a társadalom közösségétől, egyetlen gyermekével, akit vezetnie és oltalmaznia kellett - nem is remélhette, még ha erre törekedett volna is, hogy régi helyzetét valahogyan visszaszerzi -, éppen ezért elhajította a széttöredezett lánc megmaradt szemeit. A világ törvénye neki nem volt törvénye többé. Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850-ben megjelent regénye az amerikai irodalom egyik mérföldköve, komor és felemelő történet bűnről, bűnhődésről, egyén és társadalom viszonyáról.

Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter, Pearl, is the product of an illicit affair but no one knows the identity of Pearl's father. Hester's refusal to name him brings more condemnation upon her. But she stands strong in the face of public scorn, even when she is forced to wear the sign of her shame sewn onto her clothes: the scarlet letter 'A' for 'Adulteress'

Hrdinkou tohoto snového, současně ale neúprosně realistického příběhu je mladá, krásná a svobodomyslná Hester, již krutě poníží závistivý dav. Příběh plný intenzivní symboliky se vyznačuje mimořádnou obrazností a prudkým spádem událostí líčených téměř filmovou řečí. Hesteřino vnitřní vyrovnávání s okolní nenávistí a její postupný návrat do života provázejí fascinující a výjimečně dojímavé výjevy. Hawthorn inspiroval nejeden moderní román, vždyť: Nechť se muži střeží získat si ruku ženy, nezískají-li si zároveň i její horoucí srdce! Jinak je může potkat zlý osud, , že až někdo mocnějším dotykem, než byl jejich, probudí v srdci ženy milostný cit, bude jim ona pak vyčítat i klidnou pohodu, tu studenou mátohu štěstí, kterou jí kdysi podloudně podstrčili místo živé skutečnosti. Henry James o knize napsal: Je nádherná, skvělá, mimořádná. Má v nejvyšším stupni kvality, kterými se vyznačuje velké umění nepopsatelnou průzračnost a lehkost, nevyčerpatelné kouzlo a tajemství.

HarperCollins is pround to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.' A tale of sin, punishment and atonement, The Scarlet Letter exposes the moral rigidity of a 17th-Century Puritan New England community when faced with the illegitimate child of a young mother. Regarded as the first real heroine of American fiction, it is Hester Prynne's strength of character that resonates with the reader when her harsh sentence is cast. It is in her refusal to reveal the identity of the father in the face of her accusers that Hawthorne champions his heroine and berates the weakness of Society for attacking the innocent.

Apres avoir vaincu Procuste, sinistre personnage qui retaillait ses victimes aux dimensions de sa couche, Scinis, qui catapultait ses contemporains dans les airs, et quelques autres dangers publics de l'époque, le jeune Thésée entre dans les Athenes, ou il compte retrouver son pere, Egée, qui regne sur l'Attique. La, il apprend qu'un monstre le protégeé du roi de Crete, Minos. A ce monstre, Athenes sacrifie chaque année quatorze jeunes garçons.