"Within small compass": Hawthorne's Expansive Urban Garden in The House of the Seven Gables

Abstract

Nathaniel Hawthorne loved a garden. His writings consistently show his awareness of their complexity. He sees gardens as sites of negotiation that demand a relevant and meaningful presence for both nature and culture. In The House of the Seven Gables, his urban garden of "small compass" effectively envisions and then makes workable a model of co-existence inclusive of all human and organic life on equal terms, and strives to realize a non-hierarchical social model of human community.