TRANSFORMATION OF THE DISCOURSE OF SENSATIONAL LITERATURE IN NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’S “THE SCARLET LETTER”

Abstract

The article examines Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter in the context of its complex interaction with the discourse of popular sensational literature in the mid-19th century United States. The author proposes a re-evaluation of the traditional view of this work as an isolated masterpiece of "high" Romanticism, analyzing it instead as a creative response to the socio-cultural challenges of the Second Great Awakening. The study demonstrates that Hawthorne's choice of a plot centered on a minister's adultery was not merely a nostalgic reference to the past, but a direct appeal to the contemporary American society's anxieties regarding the moral relativism of new religious sects. Special attention is paid to how the popular press and "low" genres of the time (specifically the works of Maria Monk and George Lippard) shaped the image of the democratic church as a center of sexual licentiousness and religious ecstasy fueled by alcohol consumption. The author argues that Hawthorne uses the "historical scenery" of Puritan Salem as a contrasting background: the austerity of the 17th century serves as a tool for criticizing the immorality of his contemporary America. By comparing "Old Testament" spiritual foundations with the unbridled relativism of the mid-19th century, the writer attempted to restore the social significance of the institutions of marriage and family values. The article analyzes the phenomenon of reader reception, which revealed a deep gap between the artist's didactic intentions and the needs of the mass audience. Statistical data provided (35,000 copies of The Scarlet Letter sold compared to 700,000 copies of sensational bestsellers) indicate that the contemporary reader preferred explicit descriptions of vice without moral condemnation, as offered by mass literature. The study concludes with an analysis of Hawthorne's later work, particularly the novel The Marble Faun, which is interpreted as the author's final attempt to find support in traditional Catholicism to tame the "wildness" of the American religious space. The article emphasizes that it was precisely the immersion into the element of popular culture that allowed Hawthorne to create a work that, despite its commercial loss to the "tabloid" novels of the day, became the most profound reflection on the paradoxes of the national spirit.