Question

What does this sentence mean from the Scarlet Letter?

Yet the taste of the age, demanding whatever was elaborate in compositions of this kind, did not fail to extend its influence over our stern progenitors, who had cast behind them so many fashions which it might seem harder to dispense with.

Answer 1

It's been a long time since I read the novel. Not remembering the context, the progenitors (look up the word if you don't know what it means) were stern. Maybe the current age should or could cast aside some of their fashions. The people who came before cast aside previous fashions of their own age, ones that might have been more difficult to get rid of.