For many American high school students, reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter from 1850 is a literary rite of passage, introducing them to the time’s moral codes and immersing them in the Puritans’ notions of gender, sexuality, and religion, among other issues.
Joseph Luzzi, a professor of literature at Bard College, returns to this touchstone of American literature to see how and why it is still relevant and fresh today. Explore the nuances of Hawthorne’s language and style and the ways in which his vivid characters, especially the embattled protagonist Hester Prynne, and their plights relate to concerns in the modern world.
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