*WINNER* Creation and Community: Hawthorne’s “The Artist of the Beautiful” and Poe’s “The Oval Portrait”

Abstract

The role of the artist and the nature of creation serve as recurring themes in the works of both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe. This paper presents two opposing representations of the artist figure as depicted in Hawthorne’s “The Artist of the Beautiful” and Poe’s “The Oval Portrait.” In Hawthorne’s tale, Owen Warland represents an ideal artist who aspires to create beauty while retaining a connection with his community, while Poe’s portraitist yearns to lionize himself through art as he rejects humanity. This paper was originally written for Nineteenth Centure American Literature.