"Feathertop"試論 : ホーソーンの全体像というコンテクストの中で

概要

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Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Feathertop" is subtitled "A Moralized Legend" and has generally been interpreted as such. It is, however, remarkable that the tale was the only one written after the publication of The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Why did he narrate such an apparently allegorical legend at the apex of his career? Hawthorne had always been afraid of the isolation from society since his boyhood as was guessed from his juvenile essay published in the hand-written journal, The Spectator. To him "imagination" that enabled him to write romances seemed at once enchanting and yet dangerous because it might lead him astray from the beaten path of the world. Hence he wrote the tale in order to help himself out of the solitude he bitterly felt when he was deeply immersed in the creation of "psychological romances," such as "Young Goodman Brown," and two major romances, which he was not sure to be welcomed by the public. In actual fact "Feathertop" is not an allegory but a parody of his own major works.