Lectures and Articles Related to "Main Street"

"Maine, Indian Land Speculation, and the Essex County Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692," article by Dr. Emerson W. Baker and Dr. James Kences from Maine History, volume 40, number 3, Fall 2001 (pp. 159-189). (Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the authors; write to Professor Baker at: ebaker@maine.rr.com )

"Thoreau's Last Words-- and America's First Literatures" article by Jarold Ramsey in Redefining American Literary History, Edited by A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff & Jerry W. Ward, Jr. The Modern Language Association, New York, 1990. pp. 52-61.

This essay by well-known literary critic, Jarold Ramsey, supports the ongoing movement of revising the American literary canon to include silenced or marginalized voices, such as the American Indian. Ramsey points out that American Indians, though often portrayed in our national literataure, are the product of the white man's imagination, not the Indian's. In fact, Ramsey concludes, even Thoreau (and more so, Hawthorne, we should add), who comes close at times in The Maine Woods to grasping the "aboriginal experience," lacks "the imagination of native origins and [is] incapable of speaking or comprehending the first languages of the land." Nathaniel Hawthorne's treatment--and lack of treatment--of the Native American in his body of work must be considered when reading this essay.

"The Ideal Identity: Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Loss of Native American Culture," paper delivered by Greg Stone, Dept. of English, University of Tulsa, at the conference of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society, in Concord, MA, June 12, 2010.

Page citation: http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/10389/