Edwards, Catharine (2017) The romance of Roman error: encountering antiquity in Hawthorne's "The Marble Faun". In: Dufallo, B. (ed.) Roman Error: Classical Reception and the Problem of Rome's Flaws. Classical Presences. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 127-152. ISBN 9780198803034.
Abstract
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun molded many visitors’ responses to Rome as a place and inflected their relationships to the Rome of antiquity, seen as inextricably enmeshed with the Rome of Catholicism. This chapter reveals that the view of Roman error offered here instantiates and reinforces a particular Protestant, perhaps American Protestant, understanding of Rome and the conflicts that it creates within the visitor. Rome as a place, imbued with the errors of the past, predisposes people to err, it seems. Yet if Hawthorne’s emphasis on Romance indicates that Roman error need not, in the end, be seen as a real threat—at least by the Protestant visitor who is equipped to resist its pull—nevertheless The Marble Faun explores the compelling appeal of the abyss in ways that make Rome into an especially apt place to engage with problems arising from the weight of history, guilt, and religious doubt.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | Hawthorne, The Marble Faun, Romance, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, guilt, abyss |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies |
| Depositing User: | Catharine Edwards |
| Date Deposited: | 31 Mar 2017 14:15 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 17:25 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/15774 |
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