The CEA Forum - Summer/Fall 2005 - The Artist of the Beautiful: An Allegory for Our Times

Oct 15, 2026

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An essay by Kathleen Thornton analyzes Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Artist of the Beautiful” through the lens of contemporary literary criticism. Thornton recalls teaching American Literature after an administrative gap and critiques students’ reliance on theory-heavy vocabulary that displaces aesthetic engagement. The piece argues that close attention to language, craft, and poetic devices was replaced by interpretations focused on social, political, and psychological context. Thornton then describes a classroom pivot toward sensory reading and multiple intelligences to rebuild students’ “palate.”

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time8 min

AccessFree to download

The CEA Forum

Hawthorne’s “The Artist of the Beautiful” as allegory

Classroom experience: theory replacing aesthetic reading

Teaching craft, terminology, and close reading

Rewriting “To Theory” and classroom intervention

The CEA Forum Summer/Fall 2005: 34.2 THE ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL: AN ALLEGORY FOR OUR TIMES Kathleen Thornton In Nathaniel Hawthorne's “The Artist of the Beautiful,” Owen Warland devotes the energy of his entire life to the pursuit of and creation of a single beautiful object d'art: a mechanical butterfly so shimmering and delicate that it seems to have a life of its own, albeit an ephemeral one. Those who witness it admire and criticize, wonder at and puzzle over it in an attempt to understand it, only for it to be crushed by the hand of an ignorant child who reduces it to the wheels, gears, and springs that are its individual parts. Yet, the whole was always greater than its parts.“What is it?"asks one character in an attempt to categorize.“How does it work?” inquires another more interested in the cause than the effect.“Doesn't that beat all?” observes a third admiringly. Because none are artists, the characters who comprise the family of Peter Hovendale in Hawthorne's tale fail to see or understand the essence of Owen's gift, preferring to the butterfly itself its allegorical compliment, the box in which it came, as skilled craftsmanship, beautiful, and practical. In Spring 2003, I taught an American Literature class after a two-year administrative absence from the classroom. When reading my undergraduate students' papers or exams, I was struck by the language they were using to discuss the stories of Poe and Hawthorne.“Take it apart” and “dissect” were substituted for “read,”“appreciate” and “understand.”“What does it mean?” they queried, “and what should we privilege?” They concurred that Poe “must have been a deeply troubled man who hated women to write the stories he did,” but they wanted to know what some of Hawthorne's stories (other than “The Birthmark” which they “understood,”after reading Judith Fetterley's essay) revealed about his mental state and relationship to women. Since all had taken our Introduction to Literary Theory course, the only course all English majors are required to take, they were anxious to flex their critical muscles and use words like “discourse,”“new knowledges,”“privileging,”“deconstruct,” and “post-structural” or “post-colonialism.” The English Department at the University at Albany prides itself on its forward-thinking critical perspectives and “cutting edge” theorists, particularly in our graduate program, and expects its undergraduates to learn the vocabulary and history of English Studies as we see it. What they couldn't discuss, however, and had no vocabulary for was the beauty of the language and superb craftsmanship of images and sentences each writer had used to create the effect. The aesthetic response had been bred out of them. I found this to be particularly onerous when I attempted to engage my students in conversation about poetry. My senior section of American Literature 1815-1865 admitted sheepishly that they didn't know how to read poems—they didn't know where to begin—and had had no experience with the fundamentals. They had been transformed into a group of English majors who no longer read to be entertained or to have that glimpse into the sublime or supernal loveliness that Poe spoke of. They read literature as they read the recipe for a cake: two parts feminism, one part new historicism, one part cultural studies but without any savoring of the flavor of the piece. In short, they had not developed a palate. They read literature as if its sole province was to act as a barometer of the social, political, and psychological milieu from which the writer emerged. While literature is certainly the product of those things, to me it is far more. In fact, when I asked my students to examine the internal workings of the poem or short story, probing the texts and asking them to explain the use of assonance, alliteration, synecdoche, onomatopoeia, synesthesia and the like, they were stymied. I found myself teaching them the terminology and means of experiencing lite

FAQs

What happens to Owen Warland’s mechanical butterfly in Hawthorne’s tale, and why does it matter?

The butterfly is admired and questioned by viewers but is ultimately crushed by an ignorant child, who reduces it to separate mechanical parts. Thornton uses this to highlight how people can miss the whole’s greater meaning and artistic essence.

Why does the author feel her students struggled with interpreting literature?

Students substituted theoretical verbs like “take it apart” and “dissect” for reading and lacked vocabulary for appreciating beauty and craftsmanship. Their approach treated literature mainly as evidence of social, political, and psychological conditions.

How does the author respond to this problem in her teaching?

She shifts strategies by engaging students with the sensory experience of language, reading aloud, and asking what they hear and what images the words evoke. This is supported by her exploration of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences.

Oct 15, 2026

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