One: The A-Politics of Ambiguity; Two: The Ironies of A-History; Three: The Red Badge of Compromise; Four: The Paradoxes of Dissent; Postscript
Sacvan Bercovitch
-In The Office of the Scarlett Letter, in particular, we encounter
that rare thing, a text that remains perhaps the most powerful
instance of the intellectual approach it is engaged in inventing.-
--Award presentation speech for Jay B. Hubbell Award -[A] work of
such passionate intelligence . . . [I]t will be a stolid reader who
does not feel the immensely stimulating suggestiveness of this
book. Questions of unusual profundity--about Hawthorne, about The
Scarlet Letter, about the relations of literature and culture, and
about the nature of American freedom--are subjected to rich
mediation in The Office of -The Scarlet Letter.- It is a major work
that all students of American literature and culture will have to
learn from and contend with.- --Richard Brodhead, Modern Language
Quarterly -The Office of The Scarlet Letter is best understood in
dialogic terms, that is, not as a statement standing by itself, but
as a response to a whole tradition of historical literary
criticism.- --Novel: A Forum on Fiction -The Office of 'The Scarlet
Letter' is sure to influence, if not determine, scholarly
understanding of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel for some time to come
. . . [T]his compelling short book is suggestive in its allusions,
complex in argumentation, and powerfully concentrated in style. It
. . . is an exercise in what Bercovitch has come to call 'cultural
symbology'--an analysis of the ways in which works of literature
both reflect contemporary discourse and transform the tropes by
which a culture understands itself.- --Modern Philology -As part of
his ongoing meditation on the rhetorical methods of American
liberalism, Sacvan Bercovitch takes The Scarlet Letter as 'the
liberal example par excellence of art as ideological mimesis' . . .
The ranges of meaning summoned by Hawthorne's style reveal for
Bercovitch a typology of liberal procedure: the entertainment and
subsequent absorpotion of different or, in more specifically
political terms, the expansive containment of forms of dissent.-
--Gillian Brown, American Literature -The Scarlet Letter remains a
'touchstone' in American cultural history, and it will not be
ignored. Bringing together materials from earlier lectures and
published essays in The Office of 'The Scarlet Letter, ' Sacvan
Bercovitch proves the point by establishing his own well-informed
position in the critical debate . . . Bercovitch's book combines a
potent mixture of particular evidence and grand theory that must be
expected to change some minds. Even readers who choose to reject
parts of The Office of 'The Scarlet Letter' will realize that they
have been provided with rich new possibilities to think about. It
is a book that forces reconsideration.- --Earl N. Harbert, The New
England Quarterly -Bercovitch explores in an illumination way . .
.his view of Hawthorne's social purposes . . . [An] informative
book.---Douglas Anderson, Nineteenth-Century Literature
-[Bercovitch] explores the ties between Hawthorne's work and
American religion, politics and society, and the differences and
similarities between Hawthorne's views and those of Emerson and the
Transcendentalists. His book goes a long way to proving that any
literary masterpiece, read with sympathy and intelligence, works to
re-establish the connections between the work of art and the life
and thought of its time.- --James R. Mellow, Times Literary
Supplement -Magisterially developing the second word of the title
and searching out the ambiguities of the romance in the various
ideological, social, and cultural contexts, The Office of The
Scarlet Letter reads the romance in its seventeenth-century
context; in the context of Hawthorne's individual understanding,
and his contemporaries' understanding, of that earlier context and
in the context of our understanding of both earlier contexts. The
resulting study successfully implicates late-twentieth-century
American culture with its earliest origins. The book's office is to
aid us through ideological, sociocultural, and aesthetic
interpretation, in understanding our fate and hope in our time.-
--MLA, James Russell Lowell Prize Citation
"In The Office of the Scarlett Letter, in particular, we encounter
that rare thing, a text that remains perhaps the most powerful
instance of the intellectual approach it is engaged in inventing."
--Award presentation speech for Jay B. Hubbell Award "[A] work of
such passionate intelligence . . . [I]t will be a stolid reader who
does not feel the immensely stimulating suggestiveness of this
book. Questions of unusual profundity--about Hawthorne, about The
Scarlet Letter, about the relations of literature and culture, and
about the nature of American freedom--are subjected to rich
mediation in The Office of "The Scarlet Letter." It is a major work
that all students of American literature and culture will have to
learn from and contend with." --Richard Brodhead, Modern Language
Quarterly "The Office of The Scarlet Letter is best understood in
dialogic terms, that is, not as a statement standing by itself, but
as a response to a whole tradition of historical literary
criticism." --Novel: A Forum on Fiction "The Office of 'The Scarlet
Letter' is sure to influence, if not determine, scholarly
understanding of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel for some time to come
. . . [T]his compelling short book is suggestive in its allusions,
complex in argumentation, and powerfully concentrated in style. It
. . . is an exercise in what Bercovitch has come to call 'cultural
symbology'--an analysis of the ways in which works of literature
both reflect contemporary discourse and transform the tropes by
which a culture understands itself." --Modern Philology "As part of
his ongoing meditation on the rhetorical methods of American
liberalism, Sacvan Bercovitch takes The Scarlet Letter as 'the
liberal example par excellence of art as ideological mimesis' . . .
The ranges of meaning summoned by Hawthorne's style reveal for
Bercovitch a typology of liberal procedure: the entertainment and
subsequent absorpotion of different or, in more specifically
political terms, the expansive containment of forms of dissent."
--Gillian Brown, American Literature "The Scarlet Letter remains a
'touchstone' in American cultural history, and it will not be
ignored. Bringing together materials from earlier lectures and
published essays in The Office of 'The Scarlet Letter, ' Sacvan
Bercovitch proves the point by establishing his own well-informed
position in the critical debate . . . Bercovitch's book combines a
potent mixture of particular evidence and grand theory that must be
expected to change some minds. Even readers who choose to reject
parts of The Office of 'The Scarlet Letter' will realize that they
have been provided with rich new possibilities to think about. It
is a book that forces reconsideration." --Earl N. Harbert, The New
England Quarterly "Bercovitch explores in an illumination way . .
.his view of Hawthorne's social purposes . . . [An] informative
book."--Douglas Anderson, Nineteenth-Century Literature
"[Bercovitch] explores the ties between Hawthorne's work and
American religion, politics and society, and the differences and
similarities between Hawthorne's views and those of Emerson and the
Transcendentalists. His book goes a long way to proving that any
literary masterpiece, read with sympathy and intelligence, works to
re-establish the connections between the work of art and the life
and thought of its time." --James R. Mellow, Times Literary
Supplement "Magisterially developing the second word of the title
and searching out the ambiguities of the romance in the various
ideological, social, and cultural contexts, The Office of The
Scarlet Letter reads the romance in its seventeenth-century
context; in the context of Hawthorne's individual understanding,
and his contemporaries' understanding, of that earlier context and
in the context of our understanding of both earlier contexts. The
resulting study successfully implicates late-twentieth-century
American culture with its earliest origins. The book's office is to
aid us through ideological, sociocultural, and aesthetic
interpretation, in understanding our fate and hope in our time."
--MLA, James Russell Lowell Prize Citation
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