Reasons behind the Viability of Puritan Mythology

The Puritan origins of American culture is a founding narrative that will be likely to persist for some time because of the myths of the promised land of America, of the sacred mission of its inhabitants, and of the impulse of the society to repeatedly affirm its exceptionalism: these and other national traits that are recognizable to those outside the United States, if not always visible to those within it, will remain part of an American national identity no matter how many new immigrants enter its borders or how far from its stated ideals the country may sometimes drift. In the last decade, many recent African American texts have reflected the continuities between the Puritan traditions and African American identities. Not only do we see this in Morison's Paradise but many other works of African American literature, including those by emerging young writers, display a recognizable connection to New England Puritanism^.

The larger reason for this broadly shared puritan heritage is that the United States is a nation in which ethnic identity and national identity are not and have never really been connected. For nearly two centuries, most Americans believed that to be a true American meant to be descended from white Europeans, but that only appears to be the case. American identity has always been based on a verbal agreement to believe in a body of texts, and since the fact of a person's beliefs is never a certainty, American identity depends upon assertion of belief, upon rhetorical construction, upon a verbal expression of allegiance. It is for this reason that a person born in the United States and a citizen from birth can still be declared to be "un-American" either by angry opponents or by a House on Un-American Activities Committee

As the Puritan Founders understood, the meaning of America is a promise always remaining to be fulfilled, and whether it was the promise of religious freedom or of economic opportunity, it was a dream that made the dangers of the Atlantic and an unknown wilderness worth risking. While works of American literature may often lament the failure of the American dream and portions of the population may at times become disillusioned with its false promises, parents, especially of recent immigrants, continue to teach their children to have faith in the possibilities, to work hard, and to remain optimistic about the future because the dream may be fulfilled for them. As long as such belief persists, the puritan rituals of national repentance, reawakening, and renewal, will continue.

(Emory Elliott, Those Irrepressible Puritans: Canon War Survivors, in: Пуританська традиція в літературі США, К., 2004, с. 32-33).

Rethinking Puritan Ideas and Imagery in Contemporary American Culture/ Literature

Дата добавления: 2015-06-27