In any event, according to Bercovitch, the strategy of the New England Puritan jeremiad, as he styles the genre that emerged as an integral part of their emerging imaginative epic, became the strategy of the typical jeremiads in American civil religion. The strategy was to sound the alarm at the possible prospect of the terrible failure of the meaning of America -- that is, the meaning of America in their imaginative epic. A failure would deny hope itself of the meaning of America. For all practical purposes, the meaning of America for those writers was connected with their imaginative epic regarding the covenant, an idea they borrowed from ancient Hebrew scripture. The strategy of sounding the alarm about the possible terrible failure was a summons to covenant renewal. The summons of renewal was a call to draw back from and avoid the abyss of the failure of the meaning of America as envisioned in their imaginative epic -- an abyss the depths of which no man or woman knows. (See page xxxiv.)
When I characterize their way of thinking as manic-depressive, I mean that the abyss they imagined represents the depressive polarity. Whereas the imaginative epic about the covenant represents the manic polarity. In my estimate, what Bercovitch described as the American Self (his capitalization) is manic-depressive. It's in the American cultural DNA as it were to be manic-depressive.
Now, once you catch on to the abyss that is lurking out there at the prospect of failure of the meaning of America, then you will be able to understand how and why "American optimism" is designed to be a strong check against plumbing the depths of the abyss. Granted, Charles Dickens' character Mr. Micawber in DAVID COPPERFIELD was not an American. Nevertheless, Mr. Micawber's optimism can be understood as related in spirit to "American optimism."
Now, despite Obama's rhetorical efforts to try to revivify the American Self and the American sense of the covenant, I have to wonder if the American civil religion has died and is therefore beyond being revivified.
After all, Jonathan Kozol has published one jeremaid after another calling attention to illiteracy in America, but to no avail. So what's wrong? Is Kozol simply not skilled enough as a jeremiad writer to evoke a suitable response? Or has the American civil religion of old died?
I know, I know, I myself may be speaking from the depths of the abyss regarding the lack of response to Kozol's jeremiads about illiteracy in America. Nevertheless, illiteracy in America is a problem that should be addressed.
But enough about the failure of the American covenant!
Bercovitch explains how later writers contributed to the imaginative epic that the New England Puritan writers had started. But Bercovitch does happen to mention the spirit of epics in oral tradition, a spirit that Virgil imitated in writing the AENEID and Milton, in writing PARADISE LOST and PARADISE REGAINED. According to Bercovitch, later American writers worked out a model of the American Self that had two distinctive parts: (1) a figure of spiritual commonality whose uniqueness lay in his or her determination to do his or her "own thing" in his or her "own way" and (2) individualism enshrined as self-interest to signify a cultural ideal of personal self-fulfillment. (See page xxxvi.)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
