John
W. Stuart, Ph.D., Department of English
Manchester-Essex Regional High School, Manchester, MA
"A Tanglewood Tale," a play about the relationship between Hawthorne and Melville in the Berkshires by Juliane and Stephen Glantz(courtesy of Shakespeare and Company)
Any study of Nathaniel Hawthorne
inevitably leads to some reference to the author's numerous connections with other
celebrated writers of his time. From fellow Bowdoin alumnus Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
to Concord neighbors and friends Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Hawthorne's eloquent companions comprise a remarkable portion of
America's nineteenth century literary Pantheon. None shared a greater personal
and professional influence, however, than Hawthorne's younger-by-fifteen-years
neighbor in Lenox, Massachusetts, the great novelist Herman Melville. Dedicating
his masterpiece Moby-Dick to Hawthorne, Melville reveals both his admiration
and affection for Hawthorne as his inspirational mentor and beloved friend. The
mysterious break in the intimacy between the two men finds enigmatic allusions
in Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance where Hawthorne-like narrator Miles
Coverdale repeatedly tells the reader of his love for Melville-like Hollingsworth
but ultimately rejects the latter's proposal that he become his "friend of friends,
forever." The internal evidence of the novels as well as the authors' surviving
correspondence serves to intrigue contemporary literary scholars as well as playwrights
Juliane and Stephen Glantz, whose drama A Tanglewood Tale brings the Hawthorne-Melville
relationship to the stage.
