La lettre ecarlate

A superb depiction of a utopian community that cannot survive the individual passions of its members. In language that is suggestive and often erotic, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells a tale of failed possibilities and multiple personal betrayals as he explores the contrasts between what his characters espouse and what they actually experience in an 'ideal' community. A theme of unrealized sexual possibilities serves as a counterpoint to the other failures at Blithedale: class and sex distinctions are not eradicated, and communal work on the farm proves personally unrewarding and economically disastrous. Based in part on Hawthorne's own experiences at Brook Farm, an experimental socialist community, The Blithedale Romance is especially timely in light of renewed interest in self-sufficient and other cooperative societies.

The blithedale romance

A smash hit in its day, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is the gripping tale of three New England settlers at odds with the seventeenth-century Puritan society in which they live, and remains one of literature's most evocative portraits of a love triangle. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics bound in real cloth with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. Featuring an afterword by broadcaster Jonty Claypole. Roger Chillingworth arrives in New England after two years' separation from his wife, Hester Prynne, to find her on trial for adultery. She refuses to reveal her lover and is sentenced to wear a scarlet letter 'A' sewn onto her clothes. Resolving to discover the man's identity, Roger sets out to destroy his rival, while Hester desperately tries to protect her illegitimate daughter from a society determined to condemn them both.

The Scarlet Letter

La fille de rappaccini et autres contes fantastiques

Boston, 1642. Hester, dont le mari est porté disparu, est mise au pilori car elle a commis l'adultère. Condamnée par la colo- nie puritaine à porter jusqu'à la fin de sa vie sur la poitrine un A écarlate, elle part vivre à la périphérie de la ville, seule avec sa fille, car elle a refusé de livrer le nom de son amant... L'amant, pasteur adulé, préservé un temps par sa lâcheté, ressentira bien plus douloureusement le poids de cette lettre couleur de sang. Quant au mari trompé, il n'aura de cesse de se venger et finira rongé par son obsession.

La lettre écarlate

Washington Irving (1783-1859) Rip Van Winkle. A l'époque où l'Amérique était encore une colonie britannique, Rip, un pauvre fermier, rencontre un vieillard qui l'entraîne dans la montagne, où des personnages semblant sortir d'un tableau hollandais jouent aux quilles. Rip partage leurs libations et s'endort. A son réveil, il regagne le village pour découvrir qu'il n'est plus un sujet du roi Georges III, mais un libre citoyen des Etats-Unis. Il a dormi vingt ans, et entre-temps a eu lieu la guerre d'Indépendance (1775-1781). Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) La fille de Rappaccini. Giovanni, un jeune étudiant, s'éprend de Béatrice, la fille de l'étrange Docteur Rappaccini, et découvre que celui-ci cultive dans son jardin botanique une plante maléfique dont les mortelles vertus imprègnent ceux qui l'approchent. Mais le mystérieux savant ne se doute pas des conséquences tragiques de ses expériences...

Tales of Mystery. Histoires fantastiques

Hawthorne a adapté à la Nouvelle-Angleterre l'évocation gothique de personnages claustrés dans un monde stagnant, dormant, recroquevillé, à l'écart de l'Histoire, dans ses particularités anachroniques. Ce recueil réunit de courtes fictions revisitant l'origine de la nation américaine.

Contes Et Récits

Boston, 1642. Hester, dont le mari est porte disparu, est mise au pilori car elle a commis l adultere. Condamnee par la colonie puritaine a porter jusqu a la fin de sa vie sur la poitrine un A ecarlate, elle part vivre a la peripherie de la ville, seule avec sa fille, car elle a refuse de livrer le nom de son amant... Considere comme le premier grand roman du continent americain, cet ouvrage connut a sa publication en 1850 un immense succes, mais par sa peinture d une societe integriste et d une femme eprise de liberte, il n a rien perdu aujourd hui de sa force et de son attrait. - Un roman admirable, extraordinaire [ ] il possede le charme et le mystere des grandes uvres d art - (Henry James)."

La Lettre écarlate

WHEN a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The former-while, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart-has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation. If he think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture. He will be wise, no doubt, to make a very moderate use of the privileges here stated, and, especially, to mingle the Marvelous rather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor, than as any portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the public. He can hardly be said, however, to commit a literary crime even if he disregard this caution.

In the present work, the author has proposed to himself-but with what success, fortunately, it is not for him to judge-to keep undeviatingly within his immunities. The point of view in which this tale comes under the Romantic definition lies in the attempt to connect a bygone time with the very present that is flitting away from us. It is a legend prolonging itself, from an epoch now gray in the distance, down into our own broad daylight, and bringing along with it some of its legendary mist, which the reader, according to his pleasure, may either disregard, or allow it to float almost imperceptibly about the characters and events for the sake of a picturesque effect.

La lettre ecarlate

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