America(N) Matters

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freese America(n) Matters America(n) his anthology brings together 21 of the more than Selected Essays 200 articles and essays published between 1977 and 2017 by Professor Peter Freese from the Matters University of Paderborn, one of the most distinguished freese authorities on American literature and culture within Germany and beyond. Arranged in four broad American Studies # A Monograph Series thematic sections covering the ‘matters of America’, the essays range widely across a vista of subjects, America(n) Matters Volume 283 writers, concepts and contexts, from the evolution of the American Dream to the visions of end times as apocalypse or entropic decay, from the corrupt glitter of Hollywood to the ancient mysteries of mythic landscapes, from literary classics to hip hop. Edited by He convincingly shows how the study of arts, par- michael mitchell ticularly literature, gives privileged access to the markus wierschem kaleidoscopic diversity of American society, opening up incomparable panoramas and fascinating insights. An indispensible aid to the scholar but also accessible to the general reader, these essays show how the study of America matters.

isbn 978-3-8253-6852-4 american studies – a monograph series Volume 283

Edited on behalf of the German Association for American Studies by alfred hornung anke ortlepp heike paul peter freese America(n) Matters Selected Essays

Edited by michael mitchell markus wierschem

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umschlagbilder © Peter Freese

isbn 978-3-8253-6852-4

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Den Verlag erreichen Sie im Internet unter: www.winter-verlag.de Table of Contents

Introduction: America(n) Matters7 Europe and the American Dream

“Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way”: The translatio-Conceptin Popular American Writing and Painting17

The American Dream53

Fett, sauber undversoffen: Zu drei zeitlosen Konstanten desamerikanischenDeutschlandbildes77

Americansin Europe 101 The Two Cultures: Literature and Science

From the Apocalyptic to the Entropic End: From Hope to Despair to New Hope?121

From“Entropy” to The Crying of Lot 49: Thomas Pynchon and the Entropic End149

Invented Religions as Sense-Making Systems in Kurt Vonnegut’s Novels 179

Science and Technology in Kurt Vonnegut’s Novels 203

Surviving the End: Apocalypse, Evolution, and Entropy in Bernard Malamud, Kurt Vonnegut, andThomas Pynchon227 Changing Forms and Shifting Perspectives

Die Story isttot, es lebe die Story: Von der Short Story über die Anti-Story zur Meta-Story der Gegenwart 243

Doctorow’s “Criminals of Perception,” or What Has Happened to the Historical Novel273 6 Table of Contents Universality vs. Ethnocentricity, or; the Literary Canon in a Multicultural Society299

Teaching American Multiculturalism through Stories about ‘Growing Up Ethnic’ 319 Textual Kaleidoscopes: American Identities

Bret Easton Ellis: From Less Than Zero (1985) to Imperial Bedrooms (2010)351

Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind”: A New Anthem to New York City?401

Coming of Age in the Shadow of the VietnamWar: Sam Hughes’s QuestinBobbie Ann Mason’s In Country (1985) 423

Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony (1977): Universality versus Ethnocentrism451

Joe Leaphorn as a Cultural Mediator in Tony Hillerman’s Mysteries 493

Trouble in the House of Fiction: Bernard Malamud’s The Tenants (1971) 517

A Medieval Crusader in Twentieth-Century New Orleans: John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) 533

T. CoraghessanBoyle’s TheTortillaCurtain (1995): A Case Study in the Genesis of Xenophobia571

Reprint Notices 598 Introduction: America(n) Matters

he essays collectedinthis volume, originallypublished over the Tcourse of four decades, testifytothe extraordinary breadthand depth of Peter Freese’s commitment toadvancing an understandingofthe literature andculture of the United States of America. The grandvista of subjects, writers, concepts, andcontexts spreadout in these pages – from the enduring myth of the American Dream to newmyths created (and undermined) by youthculture andhip hopartists, or fromThomas Pyn- chon’s arcane pursuit of the implications of entropytothe ancientwis- dom thatenables TonyHillerman’s Navajo detective to solve mysterious crimes – is truly impressive. Butfor alltheir diversity, certainconstants emerge from these essays. They are the result of diligentscholarship and penetratingclose reading, never failingtorevealthe heart of the matter, butalwaysallowingthathearttoremainbeating andalive, andalways making manifest why the subject of his studies matters.

While scholarship andclose readingare to be expected of one of the pre-eminent voices in German American studiesof the past fortyyears, Peter Freese possesses a far rarer quality:the abilitytoexcite andinspire, andthese essays evince these qualitiesagain andagain. They are the qualitiesof agreat teacher;and as head of the American Studiesdepart- ment of PaderbornUniversity fromits inceptionin1979until2005 and afterwards as Professor Emeritus, Freese hasdedicated hiscareer not only to educatinggenerationsof students (not leastthroughtwo highly successful series of school textbooks, Schöningh’s Textsfor English and AmericanStudies andLangenscheidt’s Viewfinder, with combinedsales of over a million copies) butalsototrainingfuture teachers. The essays conveysomething of hisunique gift for showing howthe studyof the literature and culture of America matters.

Why doesitmatter? The most obvious answer is that the United States, as the dominantworld power over the last 100years, hasinflu- encedall our lives in fundamental political, economic andcultural ways. Andaswe move into an era of increasing global interconnectionbut con- comitant change anduncertainty, it becomes more andmore important to trytogainanunderstandingwhich can take us beyond cliché or superfi- cial criticism. The best waytodothis, as Freese demonstrates, is by pay- ingattention to the nation’sculture andarts, in particular itsperspica- cious writers, andthere couldbe no better guide in thisprocess thanthe articlescollected here, for another salientfeature of these essays is the almost uncanny clairvoyance withwhich Freese highlights aspectsof 8 Introduction American societyand how the authorshedealswithhave viewed them, so that he makesphenomena which mightatfirst seem merelybaffling comprehensible in their subtle differentiations. In this regard, Freese sub- scribes to Kurt Vonnegut’s view of the social role of art and the artist as a “canary in a coal-mine”1 sensitive to changesand dangerslongbefore anyone else becomesaware of them. Some mayobject that artspeaksfor itself, anditdoes; yetitdoesnot always do so clearly, and – in an age of constant informationaloverloadand entropic noise – not always unmedi- ated. Hence, to quote another greatcritic, it maynot be “expectedofcrit- icsasitisof poets that they should help us to make sense of our lives” yettheycan certainly help us in “makingsense of the ways we tryto make sense of our lives.”2 To listentosubtletiesinthe arts, then – the how andwhy of readingliterature, for instance – is something that needs to be learned. Goodcriticism, thatis, such criticism as teaches, enlight- ens, andexcites itsreadersinopening up newhorizons – can also be an art form.

Freese helpshis readers, in other words, to see what really matters aboutAmerica andwhy America matters. At the same time there is no magic about howhe does this. The essays provide an exemplary justifi- cationfor the studyofliterature, since, for allFreese’sattentiontocul- ture andthe fascinatingculturalmosaic that constitutes today’s United States, his conviction thatwriters andimaginative artistshave a unique contribution to make constantly comestothe fore. By eschewingthe claims of ‘theory’ – while stillaware of itsfunction andmerits – andre- turning to an exact analysis of text andattention to the authors’works themselves, he allowshis readers to approach textstheythought they knew with fresh eyes or to embark on the discovery of newpaths witha sense of curiosity and adventurous enthusiasm.

At the same time, the essays assembledhere, for alltheir varietyand depthof insight, presentlittle more than the tipof the scholarlyiceberg. Starting with the 1971 publication(and1998reprint) of his nowclassic study Die Initiationsreise, a critical tour de force tracing the evolution of the youthful hero’s journeyofinitiation in American literature, Freese’s signature approach hasbeenamixture of contextual (e.g. historical, social, religious, anthropological) investigation, the analysis of recurrent andevolving culturalthemes, andindividualinterpretationthatalways

1 Kurt Vonnegut Jr., “Physicist, PurgeThyself,” Chicago TribuneMagazine, June 22, 1969, p. 44. 2 Frank Kermode, TheSense of an Ending (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2000), p. 3. America(n) Matters 9 puts the text first. In hisendeavors, he frequently exhibits, as one Ameri- can reviewer put it with regard to J. D. Salinger, “muchdeeper sensitivity to the archetypalelementsunderlying” hischosenobjects“thanmost American commentators.”3 Anumber of monographs on the American shortstory made him a household name in academic andeducational cir- cles in Germany. Hisbook America: DreamorNightmare? only served to cementhis reputation as an outstandingculturalcritic, who, reviewers quickly found, wasnot averse to theuse of ‘New Historicism,’ either, incorporating “posters, advertisements, films, TV series, andtexts of popular songs in itsarguments”4 to demonstrate “thatbroad concepts suchasthe American Dream […]are stillofgreatheuristic value for the explorationofcomplexissuesinAmerican Studies.”5 Finally,his ground- breaking andstimulating studyof the use of the SecondLaw of Thermo- dynamics in Americanliterature andthought stillstandsasone of those singular examplesthattruly transcendthe divide betweenscience and literature, openingthe door to a deeper appreciationof both, while his magisterialsurveyofthe novels of Kurt Vonnegut provided “the most easily graspedapproach to revealingVonnegut’sessentialand ever-present underlying concern forthe humancondition,”6 andhas been recognized as “a pinnacleofVonnegut studies.”7 The essays collectedhere provide an opportunity to sample in asingle volume a broadrange of the themeshehas turnedhis attention to overalongand distinguished career. The anthologyalso givesthe reader an impression of Freese’s engaging voice: serious, butnot withouthumor;sympathetic, butnot without critical distance;incisive, but never simplistic; intellectual, butnever dull.

For ease of use, we have arranged the essays intothematic sections. The firstof these, Europe and the American Dream, examineshow certainideas andconcepts which determine how the United Statessees itself andothers, andisinturnseenbythem, have evolvedover time. Freese teases out, in a series of judiciously chosen instances, how such ideas oftenbegin in prejudice or misunderstanding. These have a ten- dencytotake on a life of their own, alienatedfromtheir originalconcep- tion, oftenunderstood imperfectly even by those who take them as foun- dationalprinciples. The firstofthese traceshow a “complexphilosophi-

3 Warren French, J. D. Salinger Revisited (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1988), p. 46. 4 Gerd Hurm, Kritikon Litterarum, 19, 1/2 (1992), p. 84. 5 Jochen Achilles, Amerikastudien, 36, 4 (1991), p. 571. 6 Marc Leeds, Amerikastudien, 54, 3 (2009), p. 542. 7 Gilbert McInnis, Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 17, 1 (2011), p. 192. 10 Introduction cal notion” originatinginthe biblical OldTestament andinclassical Roman authors mutatedinto“awidespreadpopular belief” that civilization andimperial power movedbyanalogy with the path of thesun from East to West andthatthe culmination of this processwas the establishment andwaxingpower of the United States. Europe sawinthe New Worldtothe west achance to createanewand idealsociety which wouldeclipse allthecivilizations that hadcome before. Using paintings by Leutze andMelrose andwritings fromBishop BerkeleytoJosiah Strong, Freeseinvestigateshow the movement westwardsbecame a di- vinely ordained projectand building blockof American Exceptionalism, which wasusedto justify hegemonic and imperialistpolicies.

This is followed by an essayonthe ‘AmericanDream’, whichshould be requiredreading, particularly in Germany, where the idea hassuch strongresonance that it takesupacentral position in allthe school Eng- lish curricula. Freese showshow, ironically, the idea hasits historical roots in Europe, before movingontothe multiple meanings,some of themcontradictory, whichthe conceptgradually tookon. Freese’s analy- sisisamodelof clarity andconcision. Illustratingthe versatility of his approach, a humorous example of the enduring power of national stere- otypesisprovidedinthe (German-language) survey of three prejudices aboutGermansprevalentinthe UnitedStates: their gluttony, inebriation andcleanliness. Freese closes hisremarkswithsome thoughts aboutthe purpose andeffects of suchhetero-stereotypesand a warningthatwe ig- nore thematour peril. The relationshipbetween America andEurope, particularly thatwithGreat Britain, ‘dividedbyacommon language,’ is the subject of the finalessayinthissection. ThroughAmerican eyes, Eu- rope is viewedwithacomplexmixture of pity andfascination, especially as consideration of the European Other hasalsobeenusedbyAmerican writers and commentators as a way of reflecting on their own society.

It wasPeter Freese, in hisextended survey From Apocalypse to En- tropy andBeyond: The Second Law of ThermodynamicsinPost-War AmericanFiction (1997) who tookupthe challenge setbyC. P. Snow in 1959. Snow hadtalkedabout“The Two Cultures:” a cultural divide in whichintellectuals in the humanities were unlikely to be able to describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and compared this ignorance with a scientist nothavingread Shakespeare. Freese’sbookwas describedby Ansgar Nünningas“interdisciplinary criticism at its very best” andas “essential readingnot only for allstudentsof post-war American fiction, butfor the growingnumber of people concernedwith the interplayof America(n) Matters 11 science andliteratureinthe twentiethcentury.”8 In his work, Freese not only showed howthe conceptof entropyhad been dealtwithinscience, he also pursuedthe ramifications of itstreatment in literature. Against this background our second section, The TwoCultures: Literature and Science, elaborates on ideasof entropyand apocalypse in selected fic- tional works.

The firstessayinthissection provides an overviewof the transition fromareligiousconceptionof‘end times’tothe 19th centuryconviction, regardedwithnolesshorror because it wasanchored in science, thatthe universe wasdoomed to a ‘heat-death.’Freese showshow thisidea was takenup, popularized, andfrequently misunderstood. He pointsout that creative writers, wayahead of literary critics, pursuedthe idea of entropy as an increasingstate of disorder throughShannon’scybernetic discov- eries of the relationship betweenentropy andinformationtoPrigogine’s work on self-ordering systems in order to conclude that artistic creativity offers a realistic alternative to entropic doom.

Thomas Pynchon is an author who, from the beginningof his career, became fascinatedbythe idea of entropy andconsciouslyworkeditinto hiswriting. In a newessay specially combinedand reworkedfor thisvol- ume fromtwo previouslypublishedtexts, Freese contrastsPynchon’s firstadaptationofthe Second Lawinhis earlyshort story “Entropy” with hislater use of the conceptinthe dazzling andperplexing novel The Crying of Lot49.This is an excellentexample of Freese’s exegetical ability to illuminate a difficult text in order to simultaneously explain how the ideas of physicsunderlie aspectsof the novel while also allow- ing the work’s essential mystery to remain intact.

Two essays on Kurt Vonnegut follow in this section. The first, on Vonnegut’s invented religions, showshow, in an age where science has renderedtraditionalreligiousbelief untenable, butinwhich the advance of science and technologyhas not guaranteed humanprogress, it is allthe more important to consider how sense-making systems canbe developed which can form a framework according to which people might live meaningful andproductive lives. An essayonscience in Vonnegut’s novels serves as a companionpiece. Less concerned withthe actualuse of sciencethanwith itsethical andsocialimplications, Vonnegut made use of the genre of science fictionandasaresultfor a long time failedtobe takenseriously by mainstream critics as an important Americanwriter; Freese’sessay is a useful corrective to thatview. Hiswide-rangingsur-

8 Ansgar Nünning, Anglia 118, 1 (2000), p. 146. 12 Introduction veyisparticularlyvaluable for its insights into one of Vonnegut’smost strikingnovels, Cat’sCradle. The sectionconcludes withthree authors’ envisioning of ‘the waythe world ends,’ whether as a bang or a whimper. Returningfor another look at Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot49, Freese contrasts it with closeanalyses of God’s Grace by BernardMalamud and Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut. His conclusiontothiscomparative study maybe surprising, as, allevidence to the contrary, andinthe face of apocalyptic visions, he finds their authors stillleave room for hope.

The thirdsection, Changing Formsand Shifting Perspectives, com- prises four essays spanning the period 1977 through 2015, in which Freese turnshis attentiontowaysinwhich the study of literature has been affectedbywider changesinthoughtand society, but showsthat literature, in particular imaginative fiction, hasbecome even more relevant. The firstessay, in German, examinesthe shortstory genre in the postmodern era. Having morphed from a conservative form – plot-driven, realistic, dependentonJoycean epiphany or O.Henrytwist – the story, accordingtoFreese, hastaken on the aspectsof the postmodern avant- garde. Thoughsome criticscondemnedthisasastep to nihilism andthe aporia of relativism, Freese is able to showthe newwaysinwhich stories have been usedtoprovide a convincing antidote to existentialmeaning- lessness, in whichthe reader becomesanactive participantinthe narration of realitiesthatnolonger conformtotraditionalpatternsor explana- tions. In a similar way, the next essayshows howthe historical novel, in the handsof E. L. Doctorow, becomeslessahistorical fictionand more a fictionof historiography. Here, Freese argues,the reader is invited to par- ticipate in the subjective recreation of the past, andthusinaninstrument of epistemological enquiry. This essayisanother example of how inti- mate knowledge of an author’sœuvre combinedwithwide-rangingcon- textual references serves to sharpen the reader’ssense of orientation and appreciationof literary production.

One of themajor shifts in perceptionwhich hastaken place duringthe period covered by these essays concerns the ‘canon debate,’ that is, the controversialdiscussionaboutthe works andauthorsgenerally regarded as essentialreading for American studies. Approachingthe subject from the pointof view of the teacher in Germany, Freese givesasurvey of the developmentsinthe so-called ‘culture wars’with battle-linesdrawn underthe banners of ethnocentric particularism versus a pluralistic de- fense of the universal power of literature to speakacrossculturaland ethnic divides. While applauding the need for a shiftawayfromlong- standing representationalimbalances andthe hegemonic silencing of America(n) Matters 13 voices outside the dominant discourses, in this battle Freese takesaclear andcourageousstance, as might be expected;onthe basis of his belief thatliterature matters, he makesaconvincingcase in the finalessay of this section for the educationaluse of storiesabout growing up in the di- verse andoften marginalizedcultureswithinthe United States. Studying storiessuchasthese offers the opportunitytoincrease the intercultural awarenessand sensitivity of students at school anduniversity, helping themrealize that America does notconsistof a single monolithic culture, as is frequentlyprojected to them throughthe distortedimagesof media andadvertising. Instead, such storiesencourage students to use imagination andempathy to understand what matters to the many communities thatreally form the mosaic of today’sUnitedStates, andeven to bring thatknowledge back to inform their view of their owndiverse societies in Europe.

Finally, the fourth section, TextualKaleidoscopes: AmericanIden- tities, continuesalong similar lines. It presents a cornucopia of literary scholarship assembling eightcritical essays dealingwithavarietyof writers, male andfemale, fromdifferent geographic, ethnic, andsocio- culturalbackgrounds. Here, Freese demonstrates how, through the dis- tinctvisionof each of these authors, Americanidentity emerges as a glit- tering mosaic. In Less than Zero, the apprentice novelof literary enfant terrible Bret Easton Ellis, this identity is represented throughthe eyes of rich andvapid Los Angelesyouthonthe hunt for the next distraction fromthe vacuum of their lives, which, Freese shows, is inexorably bound up with the contemporary fear andinabilitytoactuallycommunicateina meaningful manner. He goesontocompare Ellis’ firstnovelwith his much later returntothe same characters in Imperial Bedrooms, an extraordinary fusion of fictionand fact interwoven with popular culture made more topical by recent revelations aboutthe Hollywood casting couch. In what is certainlyone of the more surprisinginclusionsinthis anthology, these issuesare likewise at the forefrontof Jay-Z’sNew York rap-anthem “Empire State of Mind,” whichFreese explores in a close readingthatisasmuchanexercise in literary cryptography as it is re- spectful of the history of the unique language of this black genre of music andits more criticalpotentials. Popular music andTVculture also play a role in hisreading of Bobbie Ann Mason’s‘KMart realist’novel,which emphasizes a young Southernwoman’s struggle to come to termswith the collective American trauma of Vietnamas a part of the processof ‘growingup.’ 14 Introduction The war trauma of a young mancaughtonthe thresholdbetween cultures is also an issue in Leslie Marmon Silko’sNative American master- piece Ceremony, whose complicated time structure, ritualimplications, andconfrontation between ethnocentrism anduniversalityFreese unfolds with exhaustive depth. In contrast, Tony Hillerman’s novels about ethnic detective Joe Leaphorn mightseem a somewhatlighter affair, yet Freese’sanalysisisnolessengaginginits probingof Navajo culture, this time presentedthrough the deeply appreciative eyes of a white American male, wholived among them andbecame knownasa“Special Friendof the Dineh.”

The complicated history of race-relations betweenAfrican Americans andJewsinthe U.S. is a focal pointinFreese’sanalysisofBernard Mal- amud’smetafictionalnovel The Tenants. Taking up Malamud’ssugges- tion that “All menare Jews, exceptthattheydon’tknowit,” whichthe Jewishhumanistarticulatedas“a metaphoric wayof indicating how history, sooner or later, treats allmen,”9 Freese’scareful investigation is a testamenttothe potential of literature to reflectand, at itsbest, cross racial divisiontoarticulate universally human experiences. In a different vein, the essayonJohnKennedy Toole’shighly inventive AConfederacy of Dunces notonlyexploresincolorfuldetailthe historyand ethnic and subculturalmake-up of 1960s NewOrleans, butprovidesanilluminating studyof how genres like themodern picaresque can serve as gateways for the interrogationof clashing identitiesand weltanschauungen.

Finally, the artistascanary in the coal-mine, and the critic as prescient socialobserver emerge in alltheir contoursinFreese’sreading of T. C. Boyle’s1995novel The Tortilla Curtain;contrastingthe allegoricaltrav- ails of the Mexican illegalsAmérica andCándido, Boyle’smodern Can- dide, with the slow collapse of ignorant, unreflectingliberalvaluesinto xenophobia andreactionary isolationisminawell-to-do gatedcommu- nity, Freese’sanalysisbringsthe appeal of the American dream back into the limelight, while offering a penetrating gaze at the issues which came to the fore in the American Presidential election of 2016.

The publication of this anthologyayear after Donald Trump’selec- tion is a timelyreminder of another reasonwhy this kind of study of America matters. We are oftentoldthatwehave entereda‘post-truth age.’ It is an age of the emotionalresponse thatweoftenterm ‘populist,’ where wantingtobelieve something is more important than whether it is

9 Lawrence Lasher (ed.), Conversations with Bernard Malamud (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1991), p. 39. America(n) Matters 15 true. If, as JamesBaldwin said, “the past is allthatmakes the presentco- herent,”10 but the past is subject to multiple ‘alternative facts’ andthe presentceasestocohere, the danger growsof autocratic strongmen using bizarre inventionsandbrazendenials to nurture the idea that ‘everybody liesand nothing matters.’ Yetthe postmodern recognition of theplurality of truth is notthe same as theacceptance of the lie.If nothing else, the work of writers andartists andthe waytheir work is dealtwithinthese essays make this abundantlyclear. Indeed, the most surprising of Freese’schoices of subjectmatter, the song “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Zand Alicia Keys, is a metonymic example:onthe surface it appears to be a feel-goodemotional anthem in praise of NewYork, butFreese’s masterly exegesis revealsits underlying darker andmore complexmes- sage. To make sense of times like these we need boththe imagination of the artist to expressthe plurality andthe painstaking analytical skills of the scholar to find the truth. This anthology givesthe readeraccess to both in the best liberalhumanisttradition, conveyed by an inspirational teacher. And if we are asking why this, too, matters, Kurt Vonnegut gives a characteristically lighthearted reply:

Well, I’ve worried some about, you know, whywrite books … whyare we teachingpeople to writebooks when presidents and senators do not read them, and generals do not read them. […] And it’s been the universityexperience that taught me that thereis averygood reason, that you catch people before theybecome generals and presidents and so forth and you poison their minds with … humanity, and however you want to poison their minds, it’s pre- sumably to encourage them to make a better world.11 while Bernard Malamud (quoting Albert Camus) sounds a deeper note of warning:“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilizationfromdestroying itself.”12 To avoidcatastrophe, we do notneedwalls andborders to tryto exclude the Other, but opportunitiestocome together andunderstandone another. There are those who saythatdifferencesinculture, politics and power render such ameetingimpossible. These essays provethe contrary:thatif people are willing to listen, to learn andtounderstandthey will be able to explore what matters to other cultures andtogainaccess to other worlds. If we are prepared to do that, Peter Freese, in these essays, is the best guide we could wish for.

Michael Mitchell and Markus Wierschem

10 James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son (Boston: Beacon Press, 2012), p. 6. 11 Robert Scholes, “A Talk with Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.,” in Jerome Klinkowitzand John Somer (eds.), The Vonnegut Statement (New York: Delta Books, 1973), p. 107. 12 Lawrence Lasher (ed.), Conversations with Bernard Malamud, p. xix.

“Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way”: The translatio-Concept in Popular American Writing and Painting

nthe beginning, the ‘American Dream’ wasnothing butabundle of IcherishedEuropeanhopes anddreams, which were projected upon the newlydiscoveredcontinent andonlyinthe course of time graduallyde- veloped into genuinely American beliefsand convictions. It wasduring this complexprocess of cultural transfer andemancipationthatthe an- cienthistoriographical notion of the heliotropic progress of empire, arts, andsciences, known as the conceptof translatio imperii, religioniset studii, mutatedfrombeing a part of that “large andsubliminal area of basic assumptionsand fundamentalmyths thatunderlie the whole [Euro- pean] image of America”1 into an expression of American exceptionalism and a popular battle cry for the manifest destiny of the United States.

The origins of the translatio-notionare difficultto define, but it is gen- erally assumed that the idea of civilization’s westward movement came into being as an analogy to the course of the sun fromthe East – ex ori- ente lux – towardthe unknown western territorybeyond the Pillarsof Hercules. The writers of classicalantiquitythoughtthatthisterritorycon- tainedthe realm of immortalityand the Islands of Bliss, andsince it was unknown, they tookittobe bothpromisingand dangerous. This strange realmgradually developedfroma“dream land of paradisiac after-life” into a challenge to “men courageous enough to abandontheir hopelessly corruptednative landsand sail forthtonew shoreswhere anew start couldbemade toward a better future.”2 Thus, in hissixteenth epode, Horace advisedthe daring young menof hisdaystoleave thechaos of civil strife in Rome andmigrate to the HappyFields andthe Islandsof Bliss in the West:

reddit ubi cererem tellus inarata quotannis et inputata floret usque vinea, germinat et numquam fallentis termes olivae suamque pulla ficus ornat arborem, mella cava manant ex ilice, montibus altis levis crepante lympha desilit pede.3

1 Harold Jantz, “The Myths About America: Origins and Extensions,” Jahrbuchfür Amerikastudien, 7 (1962), pp. 6-18; here p. 6. 2 Harold Jantz, “The Myths,” p. 11. 3 Q. Horatius Flaccus, Oden und Epoden, lateinisch und deutsch,transl. by Christian Friedrich Karl Herzlieb and Johann Peter Uz (Zürich andMünchen: Artemis, 1981), 18 Europe and the American Dream In his Medea, Seneca offeredafamous prophetic passage, which Christopher Columbus cherishedand WashingtonIrvingchose as the motto for his Historyofthe Life andVoyages of Christopher Columbus. In this passage the chorus declares:

venient annis saecula seris, quibus Oceanus vincula rerum laxet et ingens pateat tellus Tethysque novos detegat orbes nec sit terris ultima Thule.4

Later writers wouldthengive the heliotropic qualityofcivilization’s westwardmovement towardsgradually more advanced stages an addi- tional meaning by relatingittothe conceptof‘the lightofreason,’and thus JohnEdwards, for example, could maintain in 1699 that Greek poets hadcreatedthe prerequisites forthisnotion“when they made Phoebus the GodofLight andLearning.”5

But there existedanother, andperhaps even more influential, tradition, namely the Biblical notion of translatioimperii as goingbacktothe Book of Daniel. In hisinterpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’sdreamand in hisown vision, Danieldeveloped a sequence of four mysteriousbeasts whichlater exegetes took to refer to the four empires of antiquity andto the translatio of power fromeach decayingempire to the next in a pro- cessleadingtothe rise of Rome andeventually culminating in the ap- pearance of the Son of Man:

golden head lion Babylon silver breastbear Media-Persia p. 366. The English translation as provided by Harold Jantz, “The Myths,” p. 11, reads: “where everyyearthe land, unploughed, yields corn, and ever blooms the vine unpruned, and buds the shoot of the never-failingolive; honeyflows from the hollow oak; from the lofty hill, with plashing foot, lightlyleaps the fountain.” 4 Seneca, vol. VIII, Tragedies, with an English translation by Frank Justus Miller (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard UniversityPress, andLondon: Heineman, rpt. 1968), pp. 260 and 261. The English translation reads: “There will come an ageinthe far-off years when Ocean shall unloose the bonds of things, when the whole broad earth shall be revealed, when Tethys shall disclose new worlds and Thule not be the limit of the lands.” 5 Gustav H. Blanke, Amerika im englischen Schrifttum des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Bochum-Langendreer: Heinrich Pöppinghaus, 1962), p. 316. – If not indicated otherwise, further quotations aretaken from Blanke’s chapter “Missionsgedanke und Westwanderungder Kultur,” pp. 315-332, whichcontains acomprehensive collection of relevant references. The translatio-Concept 19 brazenbelly and thighs leopardGreece iron legs, iron and clay feet the fourth beastRome6

Christianhistoriographers thus understood the Danielic translatio as a prophecy concerningthe progress of humankind throughasuccession of heathenempires towardsitspredestined fulfillmentinthe crowning kingdomof God. Thistradition wasunfoldedinever greater detail by suchwriters as Augustine, in his City of God, or Orosius,7 andlater there arose conflicting national variations such as the translatioimperii ad Teutonicos, which held that, with the crowning of Charlemagne, Godhad instituted a fifthempire andgiven the sovereignty of nations to the Ger- mans. Thisversion is most clearly expressedinthe Chronica of Bishop Otto of Freising, where one reads:

Quator principalia regna,qua inter ceteraeminerent, ab exordio munde fuisse in finemque eius secundum legem tocius successive permansura foreex visione quoque Danielis percipepotest. Horum ergo principes secundum cursum temporis enumeratos, primo scilicet Assirios, post subpressis Chaldeis, quos inter ceteros historiographi ponere dedigantur, Medos et Persas,ad ultimum Grecos et Romanos, posui eorumque nomine usque ad presentem imperatorem subnotavi. [...] Et de potentia quidem humana, qualiter a Babilonius ad Medos et Persa ac indeadMacedones et post ad Romanos rursumque sub Romano nomine ad Grecos derivatum sit, sat dictum arbitror. Qualiter vero inde ad Francos, qui occidentem inhabitant, translatum fuerit, in hoc opere dicendum restat.8

Fromthe Reformationonward, the translatio-traditionwas variously combinedwith a belief in racial characteristics, anditwas held that, as the Goths hadonce overthrownthe decaying RomanEmpire, the German

6 See Daniel, chapters 2 and 7. 7 SeeReinhard Gregor Kratz, Translatio imperii: Untersuchungen zu den aramäi- schen Danielerzählungen und ihrem theologiegeschichtlichen Umfeld (Neukirchen- Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991). 8 Quoted from Samuel Kliger, “The Gothic Revival and the German translatio,” Modern Philology, 45 (November 1947), 73-103; here p. 79. The English translation reads: “That therewerefrom the beginning of the world four principal kingdoms which stood out aboveall the rest, and that theyare to endureunto the world’s end, succeedingone another in accordance with the law of the universe can be gathered in various ways, in particular from the vision of Daniel. Ihavethereforeset down the rulers of these kingdoms, listed in chronological sequence, first the Assyrians, next (omitting the Chaldeans, whom the writersof historydo not deignto include among the others) the Medes and the Persians, finally theGreeks andthe Romans. [...] Re- garding human power – how it passed from the Babylonians to the Medes and the Persians and then again to the Greeks under the Roman name – Ithink enough has been said. How it was transferred from the Greeks to the Franks, who dwellin the West, remains to be told in the present book.” 20 Europe and the American Dream Protestants would nowput an endtothe corruptrule of the Pope andthus bring about“arebirth or rejuvenation of the world.”9 Such newconvic- tions, however, were notrestrictedtoGermany but also held swayinoth- er Germanic nations, andRichard De Bury provided an illustrative Eng- lish example in his Philobiblion of 1473, when he argued withpatriotic pride that the goddess of learning “has already visited the Indians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians andthe Greeks, the Arabsand the Romans. Nowshe haspassedbyParis, andnow hashappily come to Britain, the most noble of islands.”10

Againstthisbackgrounditishardlysurprisingthatthe ‘discovery’of America gave newmomentum to the notion of the westward progressof civilization, for now European Christians feltincreasingly calleduponto followthe lightof the sunintohithertouncharteredregions, there to mis- sionize the ‘heathens’ of an expandingworld. An earlyexample of the newcombination of heliotropic progress andChristian missionisprovid- ed by JacquesCartier’s BriefRécit et succincte narration (1545) about hisexplorationof Canada, which came out in an English translation in 1580 and in which one reads:

Iconsiderthat the Sun, each day, rises in the Orient and sets in theOccident, thus going round the world in 24 hours. Likewise do we seeaChristian prince, the King of Spain and Portugal, expand our faith in the lands so far discovered to the west of his own kingdom, yet still unknown.

However, notonly didthe heliotropic conceptofcivilization’s westward course become interlinkedwiththe Biblical notion of imperial succession as a fulfillmentof divine dispensation, but nowcompeting European na- tionsbegan to insistthat they were chosentoaccomplish God’spredes- tinedcourse. This resulted in acomplexand contradictory webof political, cultural, andreligiousconcepts, which wasfurther complicated by the widespreadspeculations aboutwhether the Native Americansmight notbe the LostTribesof Israel, whomBiblical prophecy demandsshould be converted before the Second Coming of Christ.11

Thus, in hispoem Doomes-Day of 1614, SirWilliamAlexander, a committedworker for the colonization of Nova Scotia, argued that the

9 Samuel Kliger, “The Gothic Revival,” p. 80. 10 Quoted from Rexmond C. Cochrane, “Bishop Berkeley and the Progress of Arts and Learning: Notes on aLiteraryConvention,” Huntington LibraryQuarterly, 18 (1953), 229-249; here p. 235. 11 See, e.g., Thomas Thorowgood, Jewes in America, or, Probabilities That the Amer- icans are of that Race (London: Printed by W. H. for Tho. Slazer, 1650). The translatio-Concept 21 light, which hadbegun to dim over a demoralized Europe, hadmoved westwardtoshine over the NewWorld andthatthe millenniumwould finallydawnafter theconversionof itsindigenous inhabitants. Aboutten years later, George Herbertsketchedasimilar developmentwhen, at the departure of JohnWinthrop’sfleet for Massachusetts, he wrotehis poem The Church Militant,inwhichhe referred to the westward course of the sunand arguedthatinthe course of this movement religion wasreplaced by the arts in Greece, thenbyempire, andfinallybyriches, luxury and degeneration, butthatnow it wasinthe processof rising triumphantly againin America:

The course was westward, that the sun might light As well our understanding as our sight. [...] Religion, like a pilgrime, westward bent, Knocking at all doores, even as she went. [...] Religion stands on tip-toe in our land, Readie to passe to the American strand. [...] Then shall religion to America flee: They have their times of Gospel, ev’n as we.12

Andthisargumentwas extended by HenryVaughaninhis poem To Christian Religion, in whichhe praisedGeorge Herbertasthe seer who hadrightlypredictedthatthe decline of religioninEurope wouldbe counterbalanced by its new rise in America and that

West-ward hence thy [religion’s] Course will hold: And when the daywith us is done, There fix, and shine aglorious Sun.13

It wasnot onlyreligion, however, that wasthoughttofollowthe course of the sun, but also the arts andthe sciences. Thus, in his Instruc- tionsfor Forraine Travell of 1642, JamesHowells speculatedabout the movement of the arts into the land of the Indians. Andaquarterof a cen- turylater, Thomas Spratsummedupthe belief of the founders of the RoyalSociety in a westwardmovement of the sciences by stating that the future growth of the‘manual arts’ would probably occur in the non- European regions of the world. In 1668, in his poem The Progressof Learning, John Denhamtraced the course of culture andthe increase of lightfromthe deluge andthe ChaldeanstoEngland andtoAmerica and modifiedthe picture by taking recourse to a competingtraditionthatcon-

12 TheWorks of George Herbert, ed. with acommentarybyF. E. Hutchinson (Ox- ford: Clarendon Press, rpt. 1972), pp. 190-198. 13 TheComplete Poetry of Henry Vaughan,ed., with an introduction, notes, and vari- ants, by French Fogle (New York: New York University Press, 1965), pp. 436f. 22 Europe and the American Dream ceivedof the westward movement notsomuchasalinear butasacircu- lar development. In 1763, the Yorkshire vicar Daniel Watson preached a sermon in support of the colleges in NewYorkand Philadelphia, in whichhe took recourse to the notion of the westward course of artsand sciences;in 1774, Horace Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann that Europe woulddecay andAmerica would emerge as theplace of a newAugustan age; and, to quote a finalexample fromarather unexpectedsource, as late as 1815the ReverendJohnChetwode Eustace prefaced his Classical Tour Through Italy with a “Preliminary Discourse” aboutthe westward movement of power andglory.

It waswithinthis context of a widespread andoften fervent hope for the erection of an ideal commonwealth in the NewWorld whichwould counterbalance the sorely feltdecline of the Old Worldthatnumerous European thinkers speculated aboutthe degree to which the Native Americanswould be amenable to education. Thusthe idea of a college for Indiansgained prominence andwas entertainedbypeople as different as the scientistBoyle andthe educator Comenius. Consequently, the no- tionswhich the IrishAnglican Bishop George Berkeley expressedinthe only poemhe ever wrote, andentitled On the ProspectofPlanting Arts andLearninginAmerica, were anything butoriginal, butsummedupthe hopesand beliefs many of his contemporariesdeduced from a venerable tradition. It wasBerkeley’s poem, however, which allowedcrucial as- pectsofthistradition to crossover to America, where they wouldturn into a popular belief and be graduallymodifiedtosuit new needs.

Berkeley is well known as the philosopher of esse estpercipi, buthis committedworkfor the missionizing of the American ‘savages’has been widely forgotten. He wasdeeply pessimistic aboutthe corruption of mor- alsinEurope and, having hisfears aboutthe abandonmentofvirtuous conductconfirmed by the catastrophic SouthSea Bubble, he wrote “An Essaytowards preventing the Ruin of GreatBritain”(1721), in whichhe deplored “the corruptdegenerate age we live in” andexpressed hisfear that“the finalperiodofour State approaches.”14 Since his desperation about thedecay of the OldWorld made him set great store in the New, he organized, at considerable personal sacrifice, a movement for the establishment of a college in the Bermudas for the conversion of Native Amer- icans, the aims of whichhedescribedin“AProposal for the better sup- plyingof Churches in our ForeignPlantations, andfor Converting the

14 TheWorks of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, ed. by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jes- sop (Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1979; reprint of the edition London and New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1951), vol. VI, pp. 84f. The translatio-Concept 23 Savage Americans, to Christianity, by aCollege to be erectedinthe SummerIslands, otherwise called The IslesofBermuda” (1725).15 In June 1725, after longand complicated negotiations, he obtainedaroyal charter for hiscollege, andonSeptember 6, 1728 he sailedwithhis new- ly married wife andsome friends16 toAmerica to demonstrate hisdeter- mination. However, he didnot travel to the Bermudasbut chose instead Newport, Rhode Island, as hisdestination.17 On January 23, 1729, after a long andtryingpassage, he arrived in the little town with its3,843 white, 649black and148 Indianinhabitants, in whichhe would live for thirty- three months. He bought a farm andbuilt a house, acquiredand baptized three slaves, collected books for hiscomprehensive library, preached an occasional sermon, andwaited in vain for the king’spromisedgrantof funds. When it became obviousthatthis grantwould never come, Berke- leybestowed hisestate andhis library of almost 1,000volumes upon

15 The “Proposal” is available in TheWorks of George Berkeley, vol. VII, pp. 345- 362. Berkeley’s motives for his daring project arestill amatter of controversy. See, e.g.,Harry M. Bracken, “Bishop Berkeley’sMessianism,” in Richard H. Popkin, ed., Millennarianism and Messianism in English Literature and Thought 1650–1800 (New York: Brill, 1988), pp. 65-80, who argues that “the suppressed premise in [Berkeley’s] argument is that the Indians arethe Lost Tribes of Israel, and in accordance with the New Testament, their conversion is absolutelyessential to the millenni- al era” (p. 80). 16 One of them was John Smibert, who is generallyconsidered the best-trained painter to come to the American colonies and who did thewell-known painting of TheBer- muda Group. He went from Newport to Boston,where he embarked upon ahighly successful career as portrait painter, and stayeduntil his death in 1751. As to the claim that Berkeley’s philosophy influenced, through Smibert, the New England portrait tradition, seeAnn Gibson and Lucia Palmer, “GeorgeBerkeley’sVisual Lan- guageand the New England PortraitTradition,” Centennial Review, 31 (Spring 1987), 122-145. 17 Berkeleywas totally ignorant of life in the American colonies, and when he published his “Proposal,” critics soon pointed out that the Bermuda Isles were the least suitable placefor erecting acollege. It was probably Berkeley’s friend HenryNew- man who chose Rhode Island for him, and who did so for reasons whichEdwin S. Gaustad, George Berkeley in America (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979), p. 52, describes as follows: “First, Newman recognized that Bermuda was unsuitable. Secondly,heknew New England best and could most readilyassist Berkeley in making the initial contacts and adjustments. Moreover, Newman could appreciate the fact that Rhode Island, unlike Massachusetts and Connecticut, pos- sessed no college. And finally, he sawinRogerWilliams’s colonythe only spot in New England free from Puritan establishment. The presenceof aChurchof Ireland dean would not embarrass the government of Rhode Island as it might those of her neighbors; at the same time, Berkeleywould be spared possible slights or affronts unwittingly offered by adissenting government.” 24 Europe and the American Dream Yale College and returnedtoLondon, where he safelyarrived on October 30, 1731.18

It wasinconnectionwith this abortive scheme that, in the springof 1726, Berkeleywrote hisonlypoem, whichhe sent to Lord Percivalas the allegedworkof“a friendofmine” with the earnest request “toshew it to none but of your ownfamily,and suffer no copy to be takenofit,”19 since he wasafraidthatitmight prove detrimentaltohis plans. Almost thirty years later, this poemwas firstpublished, withseveralalterations, in Berkeley’s A Miscellany (1752):

On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America The Muse, disgusted at an Age and Clime, Barren of everyglorious Theme, In distant Lands now waits a better Time, Producing Subjects worthyFame: In happy Climes, wherefrom the genial Sun And virgin Earth such Scenes ensue, The Force of Art by Nature seems outdone, And fancied Beauties by the true: In happy Climes the Seat of Innocence, Where Natureguides and Virtue rules, Where Men shall not impose for Truth and Sense, The Pedantry of Courts and Schools: There shall be sunganother golden Age, The rise of Empire and of Arts, The Good and Great inspiring epic Rage, The wisest Heads and Noblest Hearts. Not such as Europe breeds in her decay; Such as she bred when fresh and young, When heav’nly Flame did animate her Clay, By future Poets shall be sung. Westward the Course of Empire takes its Way; The four first Acts alreadypast,

18 The earliest treatment of Berkeley’s stay in Americaisalengthy article in Moses Coit Tyler’s ThreeMen of Letters (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895); Benjamin Rand’s short book about Berkeley’s American Sojourn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1932) is marred by his dependence upon unreliable sources and does not deal with the issue at hand; and Alice Brayton’s George Berkeley in Newport (Newport, R.I., 1954) is achattyand irreverent account with numerous illustrations but no documentation. Themost recent and most reliable studyisEdwin S. Gaustad’s George Berkeley in America. 19 TheWorks of George Berkeley, vol. VII, p. 369. The translatio-Concept 25

A fifth shall close the Drama with the Day; Time’s noblest Offspring is the last.20

Berkeley’s poemislessimportant as a piece of art than as a cultural document of momentous importance. In traditional ballad stanzaswith four linesthatalternate betweeniambic pentameters andtetrameters and are linked by alternate rhymes, this poemprovidesamessage which combines

eine Anzahl von primitivistischen Vorstellungen, die Idee vom edlen Wilden, vom GoldenenZeitalter,vom Kulturverfall, von der Westwanderungder Reli- gion und des Imperiums und [das Gedicht] ist zugleich auch der neuen Idee vom Fortschritt verpflichtet. Es kommt zu demSchluß, daßdes Menschen Hoffnungauf Regeneration in Amerika liegt und die Menschheitsgeschichte dort im fünften und glorreichsten Akt zum Abschluß kommen wird.21

Berkeley evokes the notion of the westward movement of culture by having the “disgusted Muse” emigrate from a corrupt Europe, where the lack of “gloriousTheme[s]” hasput her outofwork, into the “distant Lands” of America, there to await“abetter Time” and“Subjectsworthy [of] Fame.” He takes up thecrucial artvs. nature tradition by contrasting European “Art” with American “Nature” andthe “fancied Beauties” of the Old with “the true [Beauties]” of the NewWorld. In the latter, “the genialSun” andthe “virginEarth” create the twice-mentioned“happy Climes” whichalready characterized Horace’sIslands of the Blestand will bring forth“Scenes” that easilyoutdoall that a decayingEurope can produce. The dichotomybetween the Oldand the NewWorld is then en- hanced by the concepts of natural manand noble savage, by the portrayal of America as the countryof pristine innocence andof Europe as the re- gion of jadedexperience, andbythe description of the NewWorld as the seat of “Nature,” “Virtue,” “Truth andSense” as opposedto Europe as the land of “the Pedantry of Courts and Schools,” a phrase that echoes the quarrel between ancients and moderns.

Then the notionof“another golden Age” as derivedfromclassical an- tiquityiscombinedwithabelief in progress, andthe conceptof translatioimperii is evokedbypredicting “the rise of Empire andofArts” in the unspoiledhemisphere, where “the wisestHeadsand NoblestHearts” will provide the muse with the material necessary to inspire her “epic Rage”

20 TheWorks of GeorgeBerkeley, vol. VII, p. 373. – The earlier version, entitled America or the Muse’s Refuge and subtitled A Prophecy, can be found on pp. 369f. 21 Gustav H. Blanke, Amerika im englischen Schrifttum des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, p. 332. 26 Europe and the American Dream andmake her produce great literature. This notion is further embellished by yetanother reference to a Europe that is in a stage of “decay”and by the claimthatthe literature of the NewWorld willbe as inspiring as Eu- ropean literature once waswhenthe continent wasstill “freshand young” andits base material –“clay” –was animated by the “heav’nly Flame” of poetic inspiration. The finalstanza, appropriately opening with“westward” andclosingwith“last,” sums up the underlying idea of translatio imperii in the famousline that“Westward the Course of Empire22 takes its Way” and combines the Biblical idea of the succession of four heathen empires as leading up to the fifthempire of the Sonof Godwith the Aris- toteliannotion of a complete action unfolding in five actsintothe statement that “the four firstActs[of humanhistory are] alreadypast,” that “the fifth” actisabouttobegin, that, as aresultofaprogressive development, time’slastoffspring is the noblest, andthattherefore America will be the place where “the Drama” of human history is to be “close[d].”

On September 3, 1730, that is, at a time whenBerkeley’s poemwas as yetunpublishedand itsauthor wasstill living in Newport, Rhode Island, andwaitinginvainfor fundsfor hiscollege in the Bermudas, the Boston Newsletter printedananonymous letter to the editor which reads as follows:

Plimouth, Massachusetts SIR, As therehath been discovered in this our Town averywonderful Phanom- ena, Ihavesentyou an Account thereof for the perusal of your curious Read- ers, -- Walking last Week with aFriend by a Placewhere they were about to dig aCellar, we discovered aStone, on which thereseemed to be Engraven certain Letters, which when we had cleared from the Dirt, we read to our great Aston- ishment engraven very deep the ensuing Lines, The Eastern World enslav’d, It’s Glory ends; And Empire rises where the Sun descends. It seemeth to have been buried long in the Earth; but as I intend to bring it with me to Boston [...] and shew it to the curious and learned Gentlemen in that

22 For Berkeley, of course,the term “empire”was not apolitical concept, and he was not at allconcerned with territorial expansion. For adiscussion of the surprising ease with which the revolutionaries could both reject the hateful notion of aBritish ‘empire’ demandingtheir allegiance and submission and look forward to an American ‘empire’ of their own see Norbert Kilian, “New Wine in Old Skins? American Defini- tions of Empire and the Emergence of aNew Concept,” in NewWine in Old Skins: A Comparative Viewof Socio-Political Structures and Values Affecting the American Revolution, ed. by Erich Angermann et al. (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1976), pp. 135-152. The translatio-Concept 27

Place, it seemeth unnecessaryto give anyfurtherDescription thereof at Pre- sent. Your assured friend, &c.23

This letter seemstobe the firstformulation of the translatio-notionby a NewWorld writer, andwhatisimportant about this summaryof the westwardcourseof empire is the incorporation of the ancientEuropean tradition into a genuinely American contextbymeansoflocating the stone that allegedlycarries the inscription in “Plimouth, Massachusetts” andbythus relating it to Plymouth Rock, on whichaccording to a (factu- ally wrong) folk traditionthe Pilgrims stepped ashore in 1620fromtheir ship, the Mayflower. Lemayevenarguesthatthe letter evokestwo other American folk traditionssince it suggests unspoken parallels between the two-liner “engraven” upon an old stone on the one hand andboththe rock carvings allegedlyleft behind by pre-Columbus explorers of Ameri- ca andthe puzzling Indian petroglyphsonDightonRockatTaunton, Massachusetts, on the other. Interestinglyenough, DightonRockinBris- tolCounty, aboutwhich CottonMather wrote severaltimes, wasvisited in the very year of the letter by none other than George Berkeley. By combiningasuccinctlyphrased version of the translatio-conceptwith an American founding myth andbythusemploying the notion of the westward movement of empire as both awelcome remedy againstthe nagging feelingof colonial inferiorityand a prophetic confirmationof American exceptionalism, the anonymous text from the Boston Newsletter initiated a fruitful tradition, whichsome of the following examples will illustrate.

In 1754, King’s College wasfounded in NewYorkbyagrantfrom King George II. This college, for whichBerkeley provided detailed rec- ommendations, wasmeanttobe an Anglican fortressagainstthe dissent- ingcolonial religions andtoprovide the NewWorld withAnglican cler- gy,24 anditturnedintothe major center of Berkeleian idealism when the Irish philosopher’sfriendand correspondentSamuelJohnsonbecame its firstpresident. It wasuponJohnson’s recommendation to Benjamin Franklin that the ScottishAnglican andgraduate of Aberdeen University, WilliamSmith, whohad emigrated to America in 1751, wasmade the head of the College of Philadelphia. Smithhad found Johnson’s favor because of a bookonthe proper educationfor the NewWorld, whichhe hadpublishedinNew York in 1753 andinwhich he shared Berkeley’s

23 J. A. Leo Lemay, ed., An Early American Reader (Washington: United States In- formation Agency, 1988), p. 39. 24 SeeDavid C. Humphrey, From King’s CollegetoColumbia 1746–1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), chapter 2. 28 Europe and the American Dream dream of a future western empire. In this book, entitled A General Idea of the College of Mirania [Wonderland], Smithenvisioned a utopian“New- Britannia” looking forward to golden days andbrighter historical periods in “sublimer Lays,” andheforesaw that not only

other Bacons, Newtons, Lockes appear; And to the Skies our Laureat-Honors rear, butthateventhe Native Americanswould contribute their sharetoabet- ter and more advanced civilization:

Lo! the wild Indian, soften’d by their Song, Emerging from his Arbors, bounds along The green Savannah patient of the Lore Of Dove-ey’d Wisdom – and is rude no more.25

When, after the Revolution, King’s College needed a newand more pat- riotic name, MosesCoitTaylor aptlysuggesteditshouldbe rechristened Berkeley College,26 but for complicated politicaland religious reasons hisproposalwas not realized andKing’sCollege adoptedinstead the more popular name of Columbia University.

Five years after Smith’spaean to the goldenage of New-Britannia, the tavern keeper, physician, andastronomer Nathaniel Ames fromDedham, Massachusetts, publishedanother volume of hisalmanac An Astronomi- calDiary, whichhe hadbegun in 1725 andwhich by mid-century turned into the most popular yearbookincolonialNew England. In his1758 volume he includedacommentonthe progress of civilizationinthe New World, in which, aboutthirtyyears after Berkeley’s poem, he, too, em- ployed the translatio-concepttoforesee great things for what he prophet- ically called “the Future State of NORTH AMERICA”:

Here we find avast Stock of proper Materials for the Art and Ingenuityof Man to work upon: –Treasures of immense Worth; conceal’d from the poor ignorant aboriginal Natives! The Curious have observ’d that the Progress of Humane Literature (like the Sun) is from the East to the West; thus has it trav- elled thro’ Asia and Europe, andnow is arrived at the EasternShore of Ameri- ca. As the Coelestial Light of the Gospel was directed here by the Finger of GOD, it will doubtless, finallydrivethe long! long! Night of Heathenish Darkness from America: – So Arts and Sciences will change the Face of Na- ture in their Tour from Henceover theAppalachian Mountains to the Western Ocean; and as they march thro’ the vast Desert, the ResidenceofWild Beasts will be broken up, and their obsceneHowl ceasefor ever; – Instead of which

25 Quoted from Edwin S. Gaustad, George Berkeley in America, p. 182. 26 Moses Coit Tyler, Three Men of Letters, p. 60. The translatio-Concept 29

the Stones and Trees will dancetogether at the Music of Orpheus, – the Rocks will disclose their hidden Gems, – and the inestimable Treasures of Gold & Silver be broken up. Huge Mountains of Iron Oreare alreadydiscovered; and vast Stores arereserved for futureGenerations: This Metal more useful than Gold and Silver, will imployMillions of Hands, not onlyto form the martial Sword, and peaceful Share, alternately; but an Infinity of Utensils improved in the Exercise of Art, and Handicraft amongst Men. Nature thro’ allher Works has stamp’d Authorityonthis Law, namely, “That allfit Matter shall be improved to its best Purposes.” – Shallnot then those vast Quarries, that teem with mechanicStone, – those for Structure be piled into great Cities, – and those for Sculpture into Statues to perpetuate the Honor of renowned Heroes; even those who shall now save their Country. – O! Ye unborn Inhabitants of America! Should thisPageescapeits destin’d Conflagration at the Year’s End, and these Alphabetical Letters remain legible, – when your Eyes behold the Sun after he has rolled theSeasons round for two or threeCenturies more, you will know that in Anno Domini 1758, we dream’d of your Times.27

Ames takesitfor grantedthat(1) “the ProgressofHumane Literature (like the Sun) is from the East to the West” andbynow hasreached “the EasternShore of America;” andthat(2) “the Coelestial Lightofthe Gos- pelwas directed here by the Finger of GOD[and] will doubtless, finally drive the long! long! NightofHeathenishDarkness fromAmerica.” Thus, with both the arts andsciences and Christian religion having finally reached America, they will – andthis is asurprisinglyearlyanticipation of later developments – follow their predestined course andmove ever further west, cross the firstmajor obstacleofsettlement, “the Appalachi- an Mountains,” andthenmove on towards “the Western Ocean.”28 In the vast continenttobe opened up, savagery will be replacedbycivilization,

27 TheEssays, Humor, and Poems of Nathaniel Ames, ed. by Samuel Briggs (Cleve- land: Short & Forman, 1891), pp. 285f. 28 For the controversial political implications which the notion of afutureAmerican ‘empire’ and its westward extension would assumeafter independencehad been won seeHermann Wellenreuther, “‘First Principles of Freedom’ und die Vereinigten Staaten als Kolonialmacht, 1787 – 1803: Die Northwest Ordinancevon 1787 und ihre VerwirklichungimNorthwest Territory,” HistorischeZeitschrift, Beiheft 5, Revolu- tion und Bewahrung (München: R. Oldenbourg, 1979), pp. 89-188, and theextensive literature referred to. – Wellenreuther, p. 129, quotes aletter which David Howell wrote on February 21, 1784 and which takes up Ames’s prophecy: “The western world opens an amazing prospect as anational fund, in my opinion; it is equal to our debt. As asource of future population and strength, it is aguarantyto our independ- ence. As its inhabitants will be mostly cultivators of the soil, republicanism looks to them as its guardians. When the states on the eastern shores, or Atlantic, shall have become populous, rich and luxurious, and readyto yield their liberties into the hands of atyrant, the gods of themountains will save us, for theywill be stronger than the gods of the valleys.”