Module_1_Transcripts.docx.pdf

What Is American Literature?

“What is American literature?” It seems like a strange question, one that’s very easily

answered: Literature written in America, right? However, in framing this lecture around this

question, I hope to explore the answer in more depth, focusing on questions of American identity

that are not answered simply by pulling out a map of the contiguous United States or by

searching for a timeline that offers up a list of historical events and literary publications or even

by opening an American literature anthology. As we go through this course, you’ll begin to see

that the answer to the question of American identity is not so straightforward, and it is through

engagement with this question that American literature itself has developed.

From the first European explorers to set foot in this New World during the fifteenth

neighbors in a variety of ways: fighting, submitting, cooperating. But as time passed and the

economic and political power of the colonies increased and gave way to a new nation,

encroachment on Native Lands continued. Though the Native Americans were overpowered,

their presence in America has continued to shape our national identity—both in the ways they’ve

continued to make themselves known through their cultural reproductions and in the ways that

the American establishment has treated them.

The explorers and conquerors of the New World in large measure based their

justifications for conquest on the cultural superiority of the conquerors; the physical and mental

inferiority of the conquered; the backwardness of the Americans’ culture and technical

development; the obligation and the ability of the intruders to make better use of the land and its

The colonization efforts of the Europeans were built on these visions of America, though

there were a variety of people coming from a variety of places for a variety of purposes: English,

Dutch, Spanish, French came for religious freedom, for trade and profits, economic freedom.

But all of these purposes were united by the common thread of potential. Beneath it all, America

from its founding has been seen as a place of opportunity. But to whom that opportunity extends

has been a challenging question because America has never been a truly homogenous culture.

Shortly after Jamestown the first permanent English settlement gained traction, for

example, colonists introduced African slaves to this world, further complicating the question of

American identity—both in its concern for opportunity for all and in its ethnic makeup.

For prior to the Declaration of Independence such questions mattered little; to that point there

the Revolution, Americans found themselves seeking cultural separation from Europe as well. In

1883, Noah Webster—that famous American lexicographer—declared that “America must be as

independent in literature as she is in politics, as famous for the arts as for arms.”

And in the nineteenth century, that independence was found through what’s now known

tested, where identity can be proclaimed, and where a culture’s mark can be made.

Many writers during this era reached back to earlier written works to extend the

discussion begun then—to explore the ways in which America had fulfilled the promise its

founders had envisioned or, perhaps more often, ways that America had fallen short of these

ideals. This openness to examination, too, is a key feature of American identity, beginning with

John Winthrop, an early governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, calling that colony a “city

on a hill,” a society that should be a beacon to all, which is an idea that was eventually extended

to all colonies and the nation. But, as Sarah Vowell has noted, that image came with a warning:

that only insofar as Massachusetts Bay, and America, remains faithful to its commitment to God,

and in this image’s application to America to its founding ideals, would it remain a beacon of

American Renaissance writers since that literary movement was centered in Concord,

Massachusetts.

Herman Melville noted this influence in his praise of Hawthorne’s short fiction collection

Mosses from an Old Manse. In what was an early instance of American literary criticism—a

issues were at play, particularly the question of equality—a concept that has animated American

culture from its start.

In fact, Alexis de Tocqueville, nineteenth-century French historian and author of the

landmark treatise Democracy in America, identified a striving for equality as the defining trait of

the American people, noting that even freedom has, at times, been sacrificed here to the god of

equality: “It is not that peoples with a democratic social state naturally scorn freedom; on the

contrary, they have an instinctive taste for it. But freedom is not the chief and continual object of

their desires; it is equality for which they feel an eternal love; they rush on freedom with quick

and sudden impulses, but if they miss their mark they resign themselves to their disappointment;

but nothing will satisfy them without equality, and they would rather die than lose it" (57). And

level, the slightest variation is noticed. Hence the more equal men are, the more insatiable will

be their longing for equality” (538).

And these questions of equality get at much of the divisiveness that runs throughout

American history. If America is a country concerned with equality, how has it allowed such

majority, altering and defining even the major themes from the margins.

Toni Morrison has argued, in fact, that “the very manner by which American literature

distinguishes itself as a coherent entity exists because of this unsettled and unsettling

population.” The major themes of American literature, she says, are “individualism, masculinity,

social engagement versus historical isolation, acute and ambiguous moral problematics, and the

thematics of innocence coupled with an obsession with figurations of death and hell,”—for

Morrison, and others, keep America—and American literature—united through our continual

return to them, through our struggle to define them according to the majority’s vision or as

modified and challenged by the minority’s voice.

Acts 17 and the Study of American Literature

In reading American literature, we will encounter a variety of texts, not all of which are

completely sanitary or are written from a Christian perspective. In fact, as we get into the

literature of the twentieth century, increasingly the texts represent the devastation and heartache

of life amidst war, poverty, and injustice and often, particularly after World War II, do so from a

secular perspective. As Christian students of literature, how can we respond to these texts?

I think that Acts 17 is particularly instructive here, as it teaches an ironic stance toward

culture, one I believe we can—and should—emulate even today. In this well-known passage,

Paul has an opportunity to share his faith with the Athenians, and he does so through the

Athenians’ own cultural icons (the tomb to the unknown god and the Athenian poetry).

evidence of the Athenians’ awareness of God’s existence and holiness and of mankind’s

limitations is not a cheap trick; it is not merely a segue to get to the “good stuff” of the gospel. It

is the “good stuff”: it is the gospel message.

As demonstrated by Paul in this powerful act of evangelism, the Christian’s role in

popular culture is to interpret it, yet this interpretation differs from that performed by secular

theorists. While many secular theorists claim rightly that contemporary culture tends toward

of correcting cultural behavior itself. And they do call for such corrections—for a cultural

revolution. As Christians, however, we have a fuller awareness of the significance of life in this

world, a redeemed understanding of the origin and goal of the twisted strivings of mankind, and

a mandate to share the gospel message with the people we encounter.

existence. The commonly used label for what I call above an ironic interpretation is apocalyptic

—apocalyptic in the sense of “unveiling.” And this world—and its popular culture—is ripe with

opportunity for apocalyptic readings. Ephesians 5:15 advises us to “walk circumspectly,” arguing

that we cannot navel gaze but must “look around,” beyond ourselves. If we look around today,

we see popular culture—I submit that we must be wise in our understanding and exposing of the

full significance of this culture.

Note that Paul’s interpretation of his culture does not condone the Athenian worldview—

he calls their worship ignorant (a judgment that their own cultural icon—the tomb to the

unknown god—supports). But he also recognizes in their cultural productions a striving for

spiritual fulfillment (he calls them very religious). So they are striving for spiritual fulfillment

news, the answer/message they desire yet, in themselves, cannot find (“and this [the thing of

which they are ignorant] is what I am going to proclaim to you”): and in his comments that

follow, Paul shares with them the distinctively Christian worldview—creation, fall (of which

Paul explains their ignorant worship is a part: “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but

have an opportunity to consider such texts for a unique purpose: to study them as representative

of the culture in which we live and are called to impact for Christ.

So often as Christians we’re overly concerned about protecting ourselves from the

influence the world has on us; however, in Matthew 5:13, Jesus emphasizes the effect we should

have on the world. To be this positive influence, we might need to come in contact with these

hurting people. And as Gareth Higgins, author of How Movies Helped Save My Soul, argues,

seeing the darkness of the world in which our fellow lost human beings live can jar us out of

complacency: “While it is not helpful for us to be weighed down by the sense of trauma that

often surrounds us, it is irresponsible on the other hand to ignore this. [. . .] perhaps there are

occasions when the only thing we should do is to swallow our sense of self-protection and allow

such devotional, “Adventurous Living,” released on March 2, 2006, Fischer poses the question:

“How close can we get to the world before the world starts to rub off on us?” He offers the

shocking answer, “[A]s close as we can.” Reading and studying American literature affords us

an opportunity to do this: through these texts, we can hear the concerns of our society, their

people (which is probably necessary in order to love them) without succumbing to their sin.

Susan Gallagher and Roger Lundin, in their book Literature through the Eyes of Faith,

explain the role studying literature can play in our gospel witness:

Reading literature broadens our vision as we increase our knowledge of ourselves,

others, culture, and history. We enlarge our perspective not in order to condemn

others or to point out their many errors, but in order to explore God’s

world more thoroughly, to understand our neighbors better, and to work for

peace more effectively. Knowledge and understanding can result in analysis

and action as we reform the distortions in our own attitudes and in social,

economic, political and religious systems. Our responsibilities to God, to