Nathanial Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter 1)

     This book has pulled me in completely.   However, the introduction was not particularly enjoyable, to me anyway.  There seems to be a large amount of indulgence within the introduction.  I became somewhat confused if I was listening to Hawthorne or the narrator.  The introduction is clearly fiction, however, Hawthorne gives it a very historical true feel.  Some information that is helpful when getting to the actual novel is that the Custom House narrator is getting his information from the Surveyor Poe about Hester Prynne.

     Hawthorne use the frame story of Surveyor Poe to Custom House narrator to Hester Prynne by saying, that the Custom House Narrator finds Surveyor Poe's letters containing Hester Prynne's Story.   This introduction also uses romanticism like many works we have already talked about.  There is a discussion of the old versus the new, as well as, creative perception.  Another similarity between this and previous texts we have read in transcendentalism, with the use of nature and also the division of humanity.