Hawthorne’s Romance Theory in The House of the Seven Gables Preface

Introduction and Thematic Overview. In this “Preface” (1851), Nathaniel Hawthorne makes a clear distinction between romances and novels; the former are less strictly tied to realism and mundane facts than the latter. Hawthorne offers his book as a romance, not a novel, and although he argues that the text does offer a moral meaning, he also stresses that its moral significance is not presented in any obvious or mechanical fashion. This distinction is important not only to an understanding of The House of the Seven Gables but also to a proper appreciation of his other fiction, including his shorter tales as well as his longer works, such as The Scarlet Letter.

The Romance Versus the Novel of Manners. Hawthorne wanted to make it clear, in this “Preface,” that his writing should not be judged by the standards appropriate to a completely realistic, documentary kind of fiction writing, particularly not the kind of writing associated with the “novel of manners,” whose purpose was to recreate the details of daily life (especially contemporary life) in a believable and convincing fashion. Hawthorne, instead, seeks “a certain latitude” in his fiction; his goal is emphatically not to adhere to “a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man’s experience” (1). His focus instead is on an inner, deeper truth—“the truth of the human heart,” which the writer of romances has “a right to present . . . under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer’s own choosing or creation” (1).

Inner Truth and Artistic Latitude. Hawthorne seeks a flexibility, especially in creating the atmosphere, symbolism, overtones, undertones, and imagery of the book; he does not want to be tied to a strict, unimaginative realism. At the same time, he is conscious of the dangers of departing too far from the mundane and credible, and so he advises the writer of romance to “make a very moderate use of the privileges here stated, and, especially, to mingle the Marvellous [sic] rather as a slight, delicate, evanescent flavor, than as any portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the Public” (1). The imagery here is significant: Hawthorne is imagining the writer as a kind of chef who should have a right to depart from ordinary, predictable cuisine, but who should not depart too far from public tastes.

Moral Meaning Through Subtlety, Not Sermonizing. One widespread expectation among readers (and critics) of fiction in Hawthorne’s era was that a work of creative writing (whether a romance, novel, poem, or story) should convey some moral meaning. Hawthorne argues that The House of the Seven Gables does indeed contain a “moral”—namely, that the wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones—and in fact he adds another moral for good measure: “the folly of tumbling down an avalanche of ill-gotten gold, or real estate, on the heads of an unfortunate posterity, thereby to maim and crush them” (2). Once again, however, Hawthorne makes a case for flexibility, subtlety, and nuance: A work of fiction teaches most effectively not by making blatant arguments but “through a far more subtile [subtle] process” (2). If a work of creative art is to have a powerful moral impact, that impact must be achieved by indirection, implication, suggestion, and delicate shadings, not by open or crude sermonizing. The writer of a romance is an artist, not a preacher, and so Hawthorne rejects any impulse “relentlessly to impale the story with its moral, as with an iron rod—or rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterfly—thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude” (2).

For Discussion or Writing.
1. Flannery O’Connor was a great admirer of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and she, too, claimed to be writing in the tradition of “romance” as he defines it. Choose one of her works (such as the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”) and discuss the ways in which it is a “romantic” work in Hawthorne’s sense. How does the story depart from strict realism? How does it use symbolism and subtlety to convey a message about “the truth of the human heart”? How does it convey a moral without merely preaching?

2. Discuss whether and how accurately Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick might be considered a “romance” by Hawthorne’s definition. In what ways does Melville use symbolism, imagery, atmospheric effects, and “the Marvellous” to tell a story that transcends mere realism? In what ways does Melville explore truths of the human heart in his book rather than focusing on details of common, mundane behavior?