Black Magic vs. White Magic in Hawthorne's 'Birthmark': The Science of Control vs. the Poetics of Imagination

In his landmark Science and Poetry (1926), critic I. A. Richards suggested that science is inherently subversive of "the Magical View" of the universe which he believed to be essential to poetry. Careful readers of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Birthmark," however, may wish to qualify Richards' suggestion by contrasting two quite different magical views, both depicted in this iconic story. For Hawthorne depicts the magic of poetic imagination (practiced by the beaus who view Georgiana's birthmark as a sign of a delightful enchantment) as something quite different from the sorcery of technocratic control (practiced by the perfection-seeking Aylmer). Thorough analysis reveals that the magic of poetic imagination is of the sort that W.H. Auden has in view when he acknowledges that in the physical world "poetry makes nothing happen." However, Hawthorne helps readers see that in the world of the spirit, this poetic magic works marvels as it helps us to cherish the world as it is. This non-manipulative magic is central to the contemplative leisure that philosopher Josef Pieper recognizes as essential to literary culture. As a benign magic that "makes nothing happen," this non-controlling magic suggests something like what Taoists refer to as wu wei or "wise passivity," a contemplative posture manifest in the poetry of China's two greatest poets, Du Fu and Li Bai. In contrast to this magic of appreciative contemplation, the manipulative sorcery of Aylmer's science does make things happen in the physical world, though-as Hawthorne's story makes clear-with perilous side effects.