Names
of people and characters
from Hawthorne's life and writings
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[A]
[B]
[C]
[D]
[E]
[F]
[G]
[H]
[I]
[J]
[K]
[L]
[M]
[N]
[O]
[P]
[Q]
[R]
[S]
[T]
[U]
[V]
[W]
[X]
[Y]
[Z]
- Akers, Benjamin Paul
(1825-1861)
- American sculptor and writer whom Hawthorne
met in Rome, 1858
- Bacchus
-
- Roman god of wine
- Bellingham, Governor Richard (1592-1672)
- Elected governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (1641, 1654, 1665-1672); born in Boston,
Lincolnshire, England; came to Boston, Mass. in 1634. Also character
in The Scarlet Letter, considered
a bit more worldly than John Wilson.
- Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo (1598-1680)
- Italian architect of St. Peter's Cathedral and Trevi Fountain, Rome
- Canova, Antonio (1757-1822)
- Italian neo-classical sculptor
- Capuchins
- religious order of monks founded in 1525 as a missionary branch of the
Franciscans, by Matteo di Bascio; wore brown hoods (capuchs) and beards like
St. Francis
- Cellini, Benevenuto (1500-1571)
- Italian metalworker and sculptor from Florence, wrote Autobiography
- Cenci, Beatrice (1577-1599)
- subject of painting attributed in Hawthorne era to Guido and sculpture by
Hosmer; Italian woman executed for having her vicious
father murdered; Shelley's play The Cenci postulates her father
had raped her; this provides atmosphere for Miriam's
character and vague history
- Channing, William Ellery ("Ellery")
(sometimes Jr. or II) (1818-1901)
- born Nov. 29, 1818, Boston; named after the Signer not the Unitarian;
died, Dec. 23, 1901, Concord, Mass.; Transcendentalist poet, Concord
friend of Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau; son of Dr. Walter Channing (first to use
anesthetics in childbirth and a physician to Sophia Peabody); nephew (not son--no matter
what Poe and Henry James wrote) of the
great Unitarian minister, William Ellery Channing (1780-1842); also cousin to
another William Channing who was at Brook Farm; Harvard drop-out; cousin to
Dr. William H. Channing, abolitionist Unitarian minister in Cincinnati and Liverpool, England;
married Margaret Fuller's sister, Ellen, in 1842; contributor to The Dial;
wrote poetry condemned by Poe, edited Thoreau works but mostly took walks with friends,
described as Hawthorne friend in "The Old Manse";
see picture
and biography.
- Chillingworth, Roger (?-1650)
- Char. in The Scarlet
Letter, false name of Master Prynne, husband of
Hester Prynne.
- Cimabue, Giovanni (1240-1302)
- Italian painter; his student was Giotto
- Claude Lorrain (1600-1682)
- French landscape painter
- Curtis, George William (1824-1892)
- attended high school at Brook Farm with his brother, Burrill;
mentioned in preface to The Blithedale Romance
as the author of travel (hence "Howadji") pieces from Egypt and Syria, wrote
reminiscences of Hawthorne, 1853; essayist,
From the Easy Chair, and newspaper editor; orator at North
Bridge Centennial; later led U.S. Civil Service reform; chancellor of
University of New York
- Dimmesdale, Arthur (?-1649)
- a main char. in The Scarlet Letter, Puritan
pastor of
Hester Prynne's church, and, secretly, father of her child out of
wedlock, Pearl.
- Diocletian (fl. 284-305)
- Roman emperor, last to persecute Christians
- Domenichino (1581-1641)
- Italian fresco painter
- Donatello, Count of Monte Beni
- char. in The Marble Faun, supposed to
look like the Faun of Praxiteles
- Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
- Queen of England (1558-1603); never married,
hence
"man-like".
- Farley, Frank
- friend at Brook Farm, had been a pioneer in the West, "a man of
singular experiences and of an original turn, who was subject to mental
derangement at times....visited him at the Old Manse, when Hawthorne was
alone there, and entered actively into his makeshift
housekeeping."--A Study of Hawthorne, by George Parsons
Lathrop.
- Faun of
Praxiteles
- statue at the Capitoline Museum, Rome, by an Athenian sculptor, of
a mythical woodland Roman deity similar to the Greek god Pan, half-human, and
which is supposed to look like Donatello, in
The Marble Faun
- Fra Angelico (1387-1455)
- early Italian painter; see his Adoration of the Magi at
the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.
- Fuller, Sarah Margaret, Marchesa d'Ossoli (1810-1850)
- American transcendentalist, feminist, editor of The Dial,
1840; unsuccessfully sought to have Channing
and her sister move into Old Manse with Hawthornes; Boston
literary magazine, died in shipwreck in 1850,
popularly thought to be the type of Zenobia in The Blithedale Romance
- Gibson, John (1790-1866)
- English sculptor in tinted marble; Hawthorne met him in Italy,
1858
- Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337)
- first great Italian painter
- Greenough, Horatio (1805-1852)
- American sculptor in Rome; in 1843 did gigantic Washington statue now
in Capitol basement
- Guido Reni (1575-1642)
- Italian painter of Baroque period; Hawthorne refers to him as
"Guido"; thought by Hawthorne (but not by modern experts)
to be artist who painted Beatrice Cenci
that Hawthorne admired in Palazzo Barberini, Rome, in
1858
- Hawthorne, Rose (Lathrop), Mother Alphonsa (1851-1926)
- daughter, see separate page
- Hester
- See Prynne, Hester
- Hibbins, Mistress Ann
(?-1656)
- char. in
The Scarlet Letter
, but also a real person, widow of
a merchant not a
magistrate (and not really the sister of
Governor Bellingham), but
really executed as a witch. First mentioned as a
witch.
- Hoffman, E. T. A. (1776-1822)
- German writer, subject of Offenbach's opera Tales of Hoffmann
- Hosmer, Miss Harriet (1830-1908)
- American sculptress Hawthorne
met in Rome, 1858;
did a bust of Beatrice Cenci, now at
St. Louis Mercantile Library
- Hutchinson, Anne (1591-1643)
- Banished as an
Antinomian from Massachusetts in
1637, moved to Rhode Island, and killed by Indians
in New York. See Hawthorne's sketch of her.
As imprisoned rebel, possible origin of rose at
prison door in The Scarlet Letter.
- Jael
- See Judges 4:17-24; Jewish heroine who murdered the Canaanite captain Sisera;
alluded to as a type for Miriam
- John of Bologna (1524-1608)
- Flemish sculptor; in Florence 1553-
- Judith
- See Judith 13:1-12; Jewish widow who slept with enemy general Holofernes,
cut off his head, and rescued her besieged city
- Julius III, Pope
- reigned 1550-5; his statue as a confessor and absolver in Perugia plays a part in
The Marble Faun
- Lander, Maria Louise
- American artist from Salem whom Hawthorne
met in Rome, 1858;
did a bust of him, now at Concord Free Public Library
- Lathrop, George Parsons (1851- )
- born Honolulu, Aug. 25, 1851; educated Dresden, New York, studied law there;
married Rose Hawthorne, 1871; asst. ed. Atlantic Monthly, 1875-7;
edited Hawthorne's works; owned The Wayside; fought with Julian Hawthorne
- Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
- Italian painter and Renaissance man; now owned by Bill Gates
- Leutze, Emanuel Gottlieb (1816-1868)
- German painter in USA, painted Hawthorne portrait in 1862, now in National Portrait
Gallery, Smithsonian; several famous heroic paintings in Washington
- Luini, Bernardino (1480?-1532)
- Italian religious painter, disciple of
Leonardo da Vinci
- Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
(1807-1882)
- poet, Harvard professor, fellow Bowdoin graduate; favorably
reviewed
tales, wrote
elegy commemmorating Hawthorne's funeral
- Michelangelo (1474-1564)
- Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor; Hawthorne refers to him as
"Michael Angelo"
- Millais, Sir John (1829-1896)
- English pre-Raphaelite painter; Hawthorne refers
to his 1856 painting, Autumn Leaves, which he saw in Manchester in
1858; the pre-Raphaelites, in a reaction to
industrializing Britain, tried to return to the simpler art of
Giotto and other
painters before Raphael
- Miriam
- char. in The Marble Faun
- Octavius Caesar Augustus (63 B.C.-14 A.D.)
- defeated Cleopatra and Marc Antony at Actium, 31 B.C.; see
Shakespeare's play, Antony and Cleopatra
- Perugino, Pietro
(Pietro di Christoforo Vannucci) (1446-1523)
- Italian painter of Perugia, taught Raphael; did
some work in Sistine Chapel, the Vatican
- Pierce, Franklin
(1804-1869)
- Friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 14th president of U.S., born
Hillsboro, N.H., graduate Bowdoin College,
1824, N.H. lawyer, member of U.S. Congress and
Senate, general in Mexican War (1847), subject of
Hawthorne's campaign biography in
1852; sole remaining son tragically killed in
train wreck just before Inauguration; as President
(1853-1857) appointed
Hawthorne U.S. Consul in Liverpool, England; was with
Hawthorne when he died in Plymouth, N.H. See
grave and read
his
Inaugural Address. A
portrait is at the White House site.
- Powers, Hiram (1805-1873)
- American sculptor Hawthorne met in Florence, Italy, in
1858
- Praxiteles
- sculptor of Athens, Greece, in 4th century B.C., did
the Faun, copies of which are at the
Vatican and the Capitoline Museum, Rome; seen by Hawthorne
in Rome, 1858
- Prynne, Hester
(1620?-1688?)
- Main char. in The Scarlet Letter who
commits adultery with the Rev.
Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale, while married to the
man who now calls himself Roger Chillingworth,
and bears the child Pearl.
Named.
Emerges from prison "with natural dignity
and force of character." Called Mistress Prynne or
Madame Hester. Wears the
scarlet letter "A" on gown. Appearance
described.
- Prynne, Master
- See Chillingworth, Roger.
- Prynne, Pearl (1642-?)
- Char. in The Scarlet Letter, daughter of
Hester Prynne and, secretly and illegimately, of
the Rev. Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale.
- Raphael (1483-1520)
- Italian painter; Hawthorne admired his
Transfiguration of Christ in
the Vatican on April 25, 1858
- Ripley, Rev. Ezra ( - 1841)
- minister who lived in the
Old Manse from 1778 to 1841, pastor to Concord,
married Ralph Waldo Emerson's grandmother
- Rogers, Randolph (1825-1891)
- American sculptor Hawthorne met
in Rome, 1858
- Sodoma (1477-1549)
- Italian Renaissance painter; did a fresco at Siena, of Christ bound to
a pillar, which Hawthorne admired
- Story, William Wetmore (1819-1895)
- American sculptor whom Hawthorne met
in Rome, 1858;
he did a figure of Cleopatra
- Thompson, Cephas Giovanni (1809-1888)
- American artist and friend of Hawthorne in Rome,
1858; painted Hawthorne's portrait in
1850
- Thoreau, Henry David
(1817-1862)
- Concord writer, friend of Hawthorne; see
home page and
journal entry, Sept. 1,
1842.
- Thorwaldsen, Bertel (1770-1844)
- Danish sculptor, taught Greenough in Rome
- Tieck, Ludwig (1773-1853)
- German romantic novelist and short story writer, supposed to be similar
to Hawthorne
- Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (1477-1576)
- Italian Renaissance painter
- Wilson, Reverend John (
1588-1667)
- Puritan clergyman, came to Boston in 1630,
chief prosecutor of Anne Hutchinson. He was
actually teacher not pastor of the First Church, and so was charged
with interpreting the scriptures and teaching other ministers. Although
described in The Scarlet Letter as
"the eldest clergyman," Wilson was about 54 when he
spoke to Hester on the
scaffold (fictionally) in 1642. He is
also described as rather kindly as opposed to other stern Puritan
clergymen--he got himself in a bit of trouble as advisor to Anne
Hutchinson.
- Zenobia
- char. in The Blithedale Romance; was
the Queen of Palymra, captured and led bound through the streets by the Romans