Özet:

While she is often regarded as merely Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ailing wife—ignoring her careful (albeit secret) editing of his publications—Sophia Peabody Hawthorne nurtured artistic ambitions of her own. She was both a talented painter and writer. When she moved to Europe, with her family, she meticulously kept a journal and penned travel notes, which she later published as installments and then as a volume (in 1869), under the title Notes in England and Italy. By focusing on the Italian part of her literary endeavor, this paper sets out to demonstrate that Sophia’s experience abroad—especially in the Peninsula—enabled her to assert her identity as both a woman (beyond the customary depiction of a selfless and dutiful wife and mother) and an artist, capable of expressing her authoritative opinion, while sponsoring other fellow women artists based in Italy. As will be shown, Sophia Peabody’s story narrated by Nathaniel Hawthorne— through the character of Hilda (a copyist) in The Marble Faun (a novel inspired by the same sojourn in Italy)—offers but a partial version of her life, which needs to be complemented with Sophia’s own words.

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