The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni, also known by the British title Transformation, was the last of the four major romances by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and was published in 1860. The Marble Faun, written on the eve of the American Civil War, is set in a fantastical Italy. The romance mixes elements of a fable, pastoral, gothic novel, and travel guide.
Characters
This Romance focuses on four main characters: Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, and Donatello.
Miriam is a beautiful painter with an unknown past. Throughout the novel, she is compared to many other women including Eve, Beatrice Cenci, Judith, and Cleopatra. Miriam is pursued by a mysterious, threatening man who is her “evil genius†through life. Hilda is an innocent copyist. She is compared to the Virgin Mary and the white dove. Her simple, unbendable moral principles can make her severe in spite of her tender heart. Miriam and Hilda are often contrasted.
Kenyon is a sculptor who represents rationalist humanism. He cherishes a romantic affection towards Hilda. Donatello, the Count of Monte Beni, is often compared to Adam and is in love with Miriam. Donatello amazingly resembles the marble Faun of Praxiteles, and the novel plays with the characters’ belief that the Count may be a descendant of the antique Faun. Hawthorne, however, withholds a definite statement even in the novel’s concluding chapters and postscript.
Publication history and response
After writing The Blithedale Romance in 1852, Hawthorne, approaching fifty, turned away from publication and obtained a political appointment as American Consul in Liverpool, England, an appointment which he held from 1853 to 1857. In 1858, Hawthorne and his wife Sophia Peabody moved to Italy and became essentially tourists for a year and a half. In early 1858, Hawthorne was inspired to write his romance when he saw the Faun of Praxiteles in the Palazzo Nuovo of the Capitoline Museum in Rome.
The book was published simultaneously in America and England in 1860; the title for the British edition was Transformation: Or the Romance of Monte Beni. Both titles continue to be used today in the U.K. Encouraged to write a book in three volumes, Hawthorne included lengthy descriptions that critics found distracting or boring. Ralph Waldo Emerson called the novel "mush" but James Russell Lowell was pleased with it and praised it as a Christian parable. Reviews were generally favorable, though many were confused by the ending. William Dean Howells later wrote: "Everybody was reading it, and more or less bewailing its indefinite close, but yielding him that full honor and praise which a writer can hope for but once in his life." Friend and critic Edwin Percy Whipple noted that, even if Hawthorne had written nothing else, The Marble Faun would qualify him as a master of English composition. The climax comes less than halfway through the story, and Hawthorne intentionally failed to answer many questions about the characters and the plot. Complaints about this led Hawthorne to add a Postscript to the second edition.
Influence
- Henry James' 1884 story "The Impressions of a Cousin" alludes to The Marble Faun with the text "He is a charming creatureâ€"a kind of Yankee Donatello. If I could only be his Miriam, the situation would be almost complete, for Eunice is an excellent Hilda."
- The Marble Faun has been cited as an influence on H. P. Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.
- Weldon Kees' third collection of poems, Poems 1947-1954 opens with an epigraph from the Marble Faun.
- Frederic Tuten's 1972 novel The Adventures of Mao on the Long March uses an extensive quote from the sculptor's studio segment of the book, placing them alongside details of Chinese history from 1912 to Mao's rise to power.
- In the documentary film Grey Gardens, Edith Bouvier Beale refers to teenage handyman Jerry Torre as "The Marble Faun" because he looks terribly like The Marble Faun.
- The Marble Faun is also the title of a collection of poetry published in 1924 by William Faulkner.
- The Canadian indie-rock band Destroyer has a song entitled "Re-reading 'The Marble Faun'" on the album City of Daughters
- In Edith Wharton's novel The Age of Innocence, the narrator states that when dining at the character Adeline Archer's home one "could talk about Alpine scenery and 'The Marble Faun'."
References
- Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. p. 145.Â
- Transformation: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1860
Notes
External links
- The Marble Faun â€" Volume 1 at Project Gutenberg
- The Marble Faun â€" Volume 2 at Project Gutenberg
- The Marble Faun public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- The Italian Tour: Hawthorne's The Marble Faun â€" A Noble Theme