American Literature / Unit 8 AML 0713 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Puritan Inheritance
Captions available
The idea
Hawthorne was born in Salem in eighteen-oh-four, into a family that included a judge at the witch trials. His father, a sea captain, died of yellow fever when he was four. After Bowdoin he studied Puritan history, and its guilt became his subject.
In practice
A witch-trial judge in the family line.
Where people slip
The inherited guilt is his recurring theme.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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