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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
The Good Gallic adjective “mystique” has been transmogrified into a not uncommon American noun. Why? Because we needed a name for those sets of transcendental or mystical beliefs and attitudes that attach to certain elusive ideas, persons, institutions, objects, events, and so on that fascinate us. We need just as badly a name for those complexes of legendary or mythical stories and meanings that express certain, equally elusive and fascinating things, ideas, experiences, and expressions. We need a name for the sense of American destiny and identity—a sense that first seized the Puritans and that their successors have changed and recombined into the stuff of a patriotic tradition. This paper will explore two systems within that mythical complex, stories about American destiny and about American identity, tales that tell us where we are going and who we are who are going wherever we are going.
1. In forming this eclectic definition and for pregnant ideas about myth and mythique, I am dependent first on Voegelin, Eric, The Ecumenic Age, vol. 4 of Order and History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1974)Google Scholar, and also on Frei, Hans W., The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1974)Google Scholar; and Geertz, Clifford E., The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973)Google Scholar. With reference to American myths of identity, I am indebted to Bercovitch, Sacvan, The Puritan Origins of the American Self (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1975)Google Scholar; and with reference to American myths of destiny, to Tuveson, Ernest Lee, Redeemer Nation, The Idea of America's Millennial Role (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1968)Google Scholar, and to Cherry, Conrad. God's New Israel, Religious Interpretations of American Destiny (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971)Google Scholar. This paper prospered from discussions of it at Pomona College, Syracuse University, Yale University, and Stanford University. Critics whose gratings on various points left the author most grateful include Sydney E. Ahlstrom, Sacvan Bercovitch, Will T. Jones, Patricia O'Connell Killen, Amanda Porterfield, and David Stannard.
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