The Blithedale Romance
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2023
Language: eng
Subjects: Autobiographical fiction; Psychological fiction; Farm life -- Fiction; Massachusetts -- Fiction; Collective farms -- Fiction; Communal living -- Fiction; Fiction
Description: <p>Miles Coverdale is a young poet who goes to work on a communal farm in New England. He joins other idealists who seek to leave behind what they see as a corrupt society, and to live off the land by honest work. They will escape the world, and at the same time improve it by their example. However, this vision of a new utopia comes into conflict with the romantic desires, past attachments, and private plans of Coverdale’s companions.</p> <p>Critics noted a strong connection between the fictional story and the events in <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/nathaniel-hawthorne">Hawthorne’s</a> real life, even though in the preface Hawthorne insists that any such similarities are coincidental and don’t reflect real persons or events.</p> <p>This is one of several “romances” written by Hawthorne, in which he allows more room for imagination and examination of the human heart. There is a sharp contrast between Puritan practicality and morals, and Coverdale’s dreamlike narration.</p>