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"WITHIN THE DOMAIN OF CHAOS": NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, LUCRETIAN PHYSICS, AND MARTIAL LOGIC.(Critical Essay)

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From: Studies in the Novel
Date: 19990622
Author:KEVORKIAN, MARTIN

The article explains how 19th-century American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Marble Faun," his opposition to the Civil War, and his interest in the Lucretian physics relate to one another. The article tracks the development of Hawthorne's Lucretian philosophy in his stories "Wakefield" and "The Gray Champion," and demonstrates how the philosophy is fully embodied in the novel "The Marble Faun."

"The Union," declared Hawthorne in 1860, "is unnatural, a scheme of man, not an ordinance of God." For Hawthorne, the idea of national unity did not merit the shedding of blood; if it ...

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