Time’s Portraiture

Time’s Portraiture is one of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s shorter pieces, originally published in 1838 and later collected in his Twice Told Tales collection. The piece is a reflective sketch in the personified time format, with the figure of Time itself being treated as a particular entity whose portrait the sketch is attempting to render.

Hawthorne uses the personified format to develop the kind of meditation on time, change, and human mortality that his reflective sketches reliably worked with. The portraiture of the title points to the imagined visual rendering of Time as a figure with particular attributes, characteristics, and effects on the various human lives that pass under its influence. The sketch develops the various aspects of Time’s portrait across the page count, with each section examining some particular facet of how time shapes human experience.

The piece is more atmospheric and reflective than narratively driven, with Hawthorne’s characteristic prose style giving the sketch the kind of careful weight that his shorter work often delivered. The personified treatment of abstract concepts was a recurring technique in nineteenth century American reflective writing, and Hawthorne’s use of the format here shows him working in the wider tradition with his particular literary voice.

For students of nineteenth century American literature or of Hawthorne’s wider catalogue, Time’s Portraiture is worth knowing as one of the many similar shorter pieces that fill out the Twice Told Tales collection.