The American Mythos Jay Parini

The American Mythos Jay Parini Abstract: This essay examines the notion of an American narrative, looking at a variety of myths that have been prominent and that have, in various ways, shaped the concept of a nation devoted to Enlighten- ment and Anglo-Saxon ideals. These include liberty, equality, and justice, which can be traced to thinkers such as Montesquieu, as well as ideals laid out in the Magna Carta. These lofty ideals took the place of more traditional narratives and tribal alliances, and they helped establish a nation that had been formed by so many different immigrant strands. That these stories–going back to the Puritans landing on Ply- mouth Rock, for example–have been influential seems beyond question. Yet it remains dif½cult to assess their broader value in determining the course of a nation. How might these founding myths prove useful in refashioning the American stories in ways that, in the future, could be productive? Every nation requires a story–or many stories, which taken together form a national narrative –about its origins, a self-de½ning mythos that says something about the character of the people and how they operate in the larger world and among each other. The strength of these stories lies in their shaping power, the ways they illumine aspects of a character or embody ideals that, in turn, affect individual or collective behavior. The stories them- selves may have genuine factual content or, like the myth of George Washington cutting down the cherry tree and then refusing to lie about it, be wholly fabricated. Rome famously drew on the legend of Romulus JAY PARINI is the D. E. Axinn and Remus, its twin founders, who were children Professor of English and Creative of gods but suckled by a she-wolf who found them Writing at Middlebury College. in the wilderness. This tale, in its Ovidian com- He is a poet, novelist, and literary plexity and mythic resonance, involved aspects of critic; his recent works include supernatural intervention and, therefore, divine The Passages of H. M.: A Novel of destiny; it spoke to Roman ambitions, with their Herman Melville (2010), Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed brutal self-con½dence, their aura of centrality and America (2008), Why Poetry Matters mission. The feral vitality of that suckling by a she- (2008), and The Art of Subtraction: wolf suf½ced to drive this people forward, even to New and Selected Poems (2005). explain the transformation from republic to em- © 2012 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 52 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00128 by guest on 28 September 2021 pire. Needless to say, such foundational thus elevating to legendary status a mi- Jay Parini narratives function best when they are nor incident in the Pilgrims’ story–a taken as fact, and with modern nations, mythical moment with some use during such as the United States, there is often a time of profound national crisis. an emphasis on the literal truth of stories, In fact, Bradford barely mentioned the however legendary in character. occasion when the Pilgrims sat down with Americans, having no ethnic uniformi- the local Indians for a meal that included ty, depend on myths, which lend an aura turkey and sweet corn, if not pumpkin pie. of destiny to our collective aspirations. (A slightly fuller account of this tradi- We have numerous stories (true or– tional harvest supper is found in Mourt’s more typically–half true) that help cre- Relation [1622], written primarily by Ed- ate a sense of national identity; taken to- ward Winslow, who notes the presence of gether, they form a narrative that posits Massasoit, a local chieftain of the Wam- the United States as “the land of the free panoag who came with others of his tribe and the home of the brave,” as our na- to break bread with their neighbors.) Yet tional anthem suggests, a nation with the the resonance of any story with mythic best intentions in the world. Rugged indi- potential goes beyond its literal details. vidualism is part of our “can do” nation- The image of English Pilgrims enjoying a al character, and we have various narra- meal with representatives from a poten- tives that play into this idea, although tially hostile tribe was a good one, with they vary in their potency. As Wendell its atmosphere of cooperation and recon- Berry writes: “The career of rugged indi- ciliation, and Lincoln chose exactly the vidualism in America has run mostly to right time to recall this incident and im- absurdity, tragic or comic. But it also has bue it with mythic status. done us a certain amount of good.”1 The success of these English settlers had One of the most potent stories in our long been useful to British America, which treasure-house of tales that collectively needed stories to bolster its sense of pri- constitute our national narrative involves ority. The earliest European settlers in the the transatlantic Mayflower journey of the New World were in fact not British. The Pilgrims, those plucky English Separat- Vikings had landed in Newfoundland in ists who in 1640 fled oppression in the the eleventh century, though they made Old World to create a sustainable commu- no lasting impression. It was the Spanish nity, shaping a form of independence and who settled in this hemisphere en masse self-government at Plymouth Rock. This beginning in the early ½fteenth century tale, however inspiring, acquired its myth- –an irony not lost on modern Hispanic ic power only in the mid-nineteenth cen- immigrants, who can claim a certain pri- tury, when the journal of William Brad- ority if they choose: We were here ½rst! The ford was rediscovered after having been French were also vigorous in North Amer- lost for centuries. An American antiquar- ica, establishing colonies in Louisiana, ian called John Wingate Thorton found the Newfoundland, and elsewhere. The Dutch, manuscript in the library of a bishop in Danish, and Portuguese soon followed, London, and he patiently copied it out by raising their flags in the New World at an hand and brought it back across the early date. So it took some doing for the Atlantic, where it was published in time British to create an atmosphere of dom- for the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln ad- inance, which they certainly did. (The mired Bradford’s journal and, in 1861, de- Mayflower may have been a tiny ship, but clared Thanksgiving a national holiday, it looms large in the national memory, its 141 (1) Winter 2012 53 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00128 by guest on 28 September 2021 The descendants capable of ½lling several air- original framers, who were Enlightenment American craft carriers.) intellectuals with a working knowledge Mythos The idea of America, however–the so- of ancient and modern political theory, called American dream, which lies at the as anyone who has read The Federalist center of our national narrative–begins Papers must know. in earnest with the Declaration of Inde- The notion of freedom was an essential pendence, the successful war of separa- part of the American founding mythos tion from Britain, and the establishment from the outset of the republic, if not of the U.S. Constitution, which distilled before. But it was never an easy concept, America’s sense of its ideal self in legal or one that could not be subjected to var- terms that have assumed an almost reli- ious critiques and spun this way or that. gious aura. As G. K. Chesterton put it so In its original form, it referred to the re- memorably in What I Saw in America (1922): jection of “tyranny,” as represented by King George III and British levies. “Taxa- America is the only nation in the world tion without representation” became a that is founded on a creed. That creed is set mantra that inspired a revolution. And of forth with dogmatic and even theological course taxation remains a touchy subject, lucidity in the Declaration of Independence: as Americans continue to argue passion- perhaps the only piece of practical politics ately about who taxes them, at what rates, that is also theoretical politics and also great and how these funds are allocated. Liber- literature. It enunciates that all men are ty, in this context, refers to the freedom to equal in their claim to justice, that govern- control your own purse. ments exist to give them that justice, and As they would, many different parties that their authority is for that reason just.2 began to weigh in as the nation’s intellec- For all its durability and uniqueness, tual leaders shaped and de½ned the early the U.S. Constitution was hardly original. republic, re½ning concepts and establish- One cannot imagine its existence with- ing ½rmer boundaries. A Bill of Rights and out such intellectual forebears as Locke various amendments were added to the and Hume, or Adam Smith, each of whom U.S. Constitution itself to establish limits developed ideas that were widely influ- or particularize lofty notions, often mak- ential among the Founding Fathers, espe- ing explicit what was perhaps implicit, cially with regard to government organi- although the vagueness of language in zation and the responsibility of the res many of these statements, as in the right publica to its constituents. Montesquieu to bear arms, with its ambiguous punctu- was also a key influence, as he formulated ation, has led to endless arguments about the idea of checks and balances, with a the “real intentions” of the Founding theory of mixed government that allows Fathers, which can never be known.

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