The Scarlet Letter
''The Scarlet Letter: A Romance'' is a historical novel by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. Set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter with a man to whom she is not married and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. As punishment, she must wear a scarlet letter 'A' (for "adultery"). Containing a number of religious and historic allusions, the book explores themes of legalism, sin and guilt. ''The Scarlet Letter'' was one of the first mass-produced books in the United States. It was popular when first published and is considered a classic work of American literature. Commonly listed among the Great American Novels, it has inspired numerous film, television, and stage adaptations. Critics have described ''The Scarlet Letter'' as a masterwork, and novelist D. H. Lawrence called it a "perfect work of the American imagination". Plot ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne (né Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that town. Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, and graduated in 1825. He published his first work in 1828, the novel ''Fanshawe (novel), Fanshawe''; he later tried to suppress it, feeling that it was not equal to the standard of his later work. He published several short stories in periodicals, which he collected in 1837 as ''Twice-Told Tales''. The following year, he became engaged to Sophia Hawthorne, Sophia Peabody. He worked at the Boston Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a Transcendentalism, transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. It has an area of and a population of 675,647 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the third-largest city in the Northeastern United States after New York City and Philadelphia. The larger Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area has a population of 4.9 million as of 2023, making it the largest metropolitan area in New England and the Metropolitan statistical area, eleventh-largest in the United States. Boston was founded on Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by English Puritans, Puritan settlers, who named the city after the market town of Boston, Lincolnshire in England. During the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, Boston was home to several seminal events, incl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a travel, journey to a holy place, which can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life. A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journey (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system. Background Pilgrimages frequently involve a journey or search of morality, moral or spirituality, spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith, although sometimes it can be a metaphorical journey into someone's own beliefs. Many religions attach spiritual importance to particular places: the place of birth or death of founders or saints, or to the place of their "calling" or spiritual awakening, or of their connection (visual or verbal) with the divine, to locations where ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christian Thought
Christian theology is the theology – the systematic study of the divine and religion – of Christian belief and practice. It concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. Theologians may undertake the study of Christian theology for a variety of reasons, such as in order to: * help them better understand Christian tenets * make comparisons between Christianity and other traditions * defend Christianity against objections and criticism * facilitate reforms in the Christian church * assist in the propagation of Christianity * draw on the resources of the Christian tradition to address some present situation or perceived need * education in Christian philosophy, especially in Neoplatonic philosophyLouth, Andrew. The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Christ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Adam And Eve
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. They also provide the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin, which are important beliefs in Christianity, although not held in Judaism or Islam. In the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible, chapters one through five, there are two Genesis creation narrative, creation narratives with two distinct perspectives. In the first, Adam and Eve are not named. Instead, God in Christianity, God created humankind in image of God, God's image and instructed them to multiply and to be Stewardship (theology), stewards over everything else that God had made. In the second narrative, God fashions Adam from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden. Adam is told that he can eat freely of all the trees in the garden, Taboo#In religion a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hester And Arthur Dimmesdale, Hugh Thomson - Scarlet Letter Illustration
Hester is both a female given name and a surname. As a given name Hester is a variant of Esther. As a surname it is of Italian origin and uncertain meaning. In Ireland, particularly County Mayo, the surname Hester is found as an Anglicized form of the Gaelic ''Ó hOistir'' descendant of Oistir, who was likely an early 13th century immigrant from Tuscany. Given name * Hester Adrian, Baroness Adrian (1899—1966), British mental health worker * Hester Bateman (bap. 1708–1794), English silversmith * Hester A. Benedict (1838-1921), American poet and writer * Hester Biddle (c. 1629–97), English Quaker writer * Hester "Hetty" Burr (c. 1796-1862), American abolitionist * Hester Chapone (1727–1801), British author * Hester A. Davis (1930–2014), American archaeologist * Hester Dowden (1868–1949), Irish spiritualist medium * Hester Dunn (b. 1940), Northern Irish former loyalist activist and writer * Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith (1764-1857), British literary ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gules
In heraldry, gules () is the tincture with the colour red. It is one of the class of five dark tinctures called "colours", the others being azure (blue), sable (black), vert (green) and purpure (purple). Gules is portrayed in heraldic hatching by vertical lines, or indicated by the abbreviation g. or gu. when a coat of arms is tricked. Etymology The term ''gules'' derives from the Middle English ''goules'', which itself is an Old French word meaning "neckpiece made of red fur". ''Goules'' is derived from the Old French ''gole'' or ''guele'', both of which mean "throat", which are ultimately derived from the Latin ''gula'', also meaning "throat". Gules is similar to the English word ''gullet''. Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, A. C. Fox-Davies states that the term originates from the Persian language, Persian word , meaning "rose", but according to Brault there is no evidence to support this derivation. The modern French spelling of the tincture is ''gueules''. Both ''gules'' an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sable (heraldry)
In British heraldry, sable () is the tincture equivalent to black. It is one of the five dark tinctures called ''colours''. Sable is portrayed in heraldic hatching by criss-crossing perpendicular lines. Sable is indicated by the abbreviation s. or sa. when a coat of arms is tricked. Etymology Sable can be traced back to Middle English, Anglo-French, and ultimately to the Middle Low German ''sabel'', which refers to a species of marten known as a sable. This is related to the Middle High German ''zobel'', which is of Slav origin and akin to the Russian ''sobol, which likewise refers to the sable. Since at least the 14th century, sable has been used as a synonym for the colour black. Both ''sable'' and ''negro'' are used for black in Spanish heraldry. In Portugal, black is known as ''negro'', and in Germany the colour is called ''schwarz''. ''Sabel'' is the spelling used in Dutch heraldry. Poetic meanings The different tinctures are traditionally associated with particular hea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vestment
Vestments are Liturgy, liturgical garments and articles associated primarily with the Christianity, Christian religion, especially by Eastern Christianity, Eastern Churches, Catholic Church, Catholics (of all rites), Lutherans, and Anglicans. Many other groups also make use of liturgical garments; among the Calvinism, Reformed (Calvinist) Churches this was a point of Vestments controversy, controversy in the Protestant Reformation and sometimes since, in particular during the Ritualism in the Church of England#Ritualist controversies in the 19th century, ritualist controversies in the Church of England in the 19th century. Origins In the early Christian churches, officers and leaders, like their congregations, wore the normal dress of civil life in the Greco-Roman world, although with an expectation that the clothing should be clean and pure during holy observances. From the 4th century onward, however, modifications began to be made to the form of the garments, and, as secula ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Bellingham
Richard Bellingham (c. 1592 – 7 December 1672) was a colonial magistrate, lawyer, and several-time governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the last surviving signatory of the colonial charter at his death. A wealthy lawyer in Lincolnshire prior to his departure for the New World in 1634, he was a liberal political opponent of the moderate John Winthrop, arguing for expansive views on suffrage and lawmaking, but also religiously somewhat conservative, opposing (at times quite harshly) the efforts of Quakers and Baptists to settle in the colony. He was one of the architects of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, a document embodying many sentiments also found in the United States Bill of Rights. Although he was generally in the minority during his early years in the colony, he served ten years as colonial governor, most of them during the delicate years of the Restoration (England), English Restoration, when Charles II of England, King Charles II scrutinized the behavior ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arthur Dimmesdale
Arthur Dimmesdale is a fictional character in the 1850 novel ''The Scarlet Letter'' by Nathaniel Hawthorne. A Puritan minister, he has fathered an illegitimate child, Pearl, with Hester Prynne, the protagonist in the novel, and considers himself unable to reveal his sin. Fictional role Next to Hester Prynne herself, Dimmesdale is often considered Hawthorne's "finest character." His dilemma takes up a significant portion of the novel, bringing out Hawthorne's most famous statements on many of the concepts that recur throughout his works: guilt and redemption, truth and falsehood, and others. Dimmesdale faces a problem that is both simple and paradoxical: the knowledge of his sin, his inability to disclose it to Puritan society, and his desire for confession. He attempts to ameliorate the pressure of this position by punishing himself (both physically and mentally) and by insisting to his parishioners that he is a base, worthless creature. Without the awareness of his specific c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roger Chillingworth
Roger Chillingworth is a fictional character and primary antagonist in the 1850 novel ''The Scarlet Letter'' by Nathaniel Hawthorne. He is an English scholar who moves to the New World after his wife, Hester Prynne. Fictional role Chillingworth, a physician and student of alchemy, attempts to emigrate from England to Puritan Boston. He sends his wife ahead to set up in Boston, but he is delayed by problems at sea and then held captive by Indians. When he finally arrives in Boston, he finds his wife on a scaffold, being shamed for committing adultery. Meeting Hester in jail, Chillingworth presses her to divulge the name of her partner in adultery, but she refuses. Searching without her help, he eventually discovers that her lover is the town minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. Using his position as a doctor, and under the guise of treating Dimmesdale's unexplained sickness, Chillingworth manipulates Dimmesdale into insanity and suffering. Toward the end of the book, he tries to pr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |