Emory Elliot

Michael Colacurcio

Michael J. Colacurcio

The introduction to this volume outlines the critical history of the novel. Each of the interpretative essays that follow places The Scarlet Letter in a specific historical and cultural context. The first shows that an awareness of the convention of romance is essential to an understanding of the novel. A second investigates the tension between Hawthorne's Puritan setting and his Romantic language, suggesting a complex relationship among author, narrator, characters, and story. A third considers the novel's pervasive metaphor of sexuality. The final essay locates the work in the genre of 'the novel of adultery'.

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