This thesis discusses the symbolism found in Walt Whitman's second poetic period, as found in the collection Leaves of Grass.

This study has been made in an attempt to illustrate how the genius that was George Eliot developed, how a magnificent intellect was driven first to achievement by emotional frustration and then was coupled with emotional maturity in person, developing emotional maturity in the creative artist and producing at last the supreme and delicate balance of intellectual and emotional maturity in the philosopher who found her medium in creative art.

This thesis is a study of the four long romances, The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun, with emphasis upon Hawthorne's use of symbolism as a means of presenting the basic moral and spiritual truths of human life. The first chapter explains the nature of symbolism and the reasons why Hawthorne used it so extensively. In each of the last four chapters, the symbolism in a single romance is considered for the purpose of discovering the manner and effectiveness of its use in exemplifying the central theme of that particular story. Although Hawthorne's short stories are extremely rich in symbolism, it was not possible to include them in the present study.

The purpose has been to discover from the study of Bryant's life and poetry the extent to which his work was influenced by nature and how he interpreted it.