American Mythology

[grodog]

Who created the definitive American Mythology? Lovecraft? Gygax? Lucas? What do you think?

The "American story of the American dream"---ignoring for the moment that there's not a single story, a single dream---can, to my mind, be sketchily defined through these themes:

- a rigidly-Puritanistic moral backbone, and the ever-evolving backlash against it
- the hope for, expectation of, and work toward ruggedly individualistic, underdog achievement
- the aspiration of class transcendence, and the occasional random reinforcement success that spurs continued climbing
- a continuing rebellion against the establishment, sometimes without the self-awareness to recognize the establishment's entrenched and unassailable position, sometimes with full-knowledge and the willingness to battle through nigh-guaranteed defeat anyway
- a perhaps-insidious and contagious hope that continues to lift and inspire against all odds and comers
- the desire for expansive and all-inclusive acceptance that continually crashes against the shores of provincialism, tradition, class, race, and religion

But to answer the question... James Fennimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Mark Twain, Frank Baum and Steven King all come to mind.

To Cooper, Irving, and Twain, I'll add Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, and Fitzgerald. I've not reach much Baum, and King's a modern proxy for Hawthorne in many ways. This is clearly "dead white guys canon" but it still speaks to how much of the American spirit sees itself, I think, in terms of themes, conflicts, and rebellions against the establishment, even if today's exact causes and their heroes may identify themselves very differently from Ahab, Natty Bumppo, et al.

Allan.

[Stormcrow]

If it helps to narrow it down at all, what I was really looking for is the exemplary individual who succeeded in creating a mythology (as Tolkien did).

Tolkien started out trying to create a mythology for England, but he largely abandoned it as time went on. What he ended up with was not a mythology of England at all, but a mythology of Middle-earth, which is only vaguely associated with the real world. For instance, originally a piece of the island that the Valar used to ferry the elves to Aman broke off. This became Elvenhome. When the elves began to fade, and the Britons and then Germanics appeared, it became England. In the later conception, Elvenhome had nothing to do with England, and remained inaccessible to mortals.

A mythology attempts to explain the world and its origins through myths. Just being folklore is not mythology. The only mythologies native to America are those told by Native Americans. Immigrant populations don't have mythologies for America because they know full well they're not native; they bring their own mythologies with them.

The Oz stories are not a mythology, although they are specifically and intentionally American. They are a fairy-story. Folklore about early European-American heroes is not mythology, it's just folklore. Poetry about the American experience is not mythology, it's just poetry.

I'm not aware of anyone who has attempted to create an actual mythology of America that isn't about Native Americans, who already have their own mythologies.

[Geoffrey]

Major figures of the American pantheon include:

Tarzan
Superman
Batman
Wonder Woman
Elvis Presley
Marilyn Monroe

[Falconer]

What he ended up with was not a mythology of England at all, but a mythology of Middle-earth

It’s still English. Totally, quintessentially English.

[Kellri]

It’s still English. Totally, quintessentially English.

I completely agree. Everything about Middle Earth is English. The background is deeply rooted in Anglo-Saxon and earlier English tradition, even the terrain is English. One reason I think he's so hard to emulate is because he himself was representative of a distinctly English tradition that depends so heavily on the author's own personality and sense of Englishness. Many have tried, usually American, to emulate the plot and even the trilogy format but none really come close to Tolkien because there is always the sense they are little more than world-building exercises writ large.

Likewise, while I love the Sergio Leone films. I would hesitate to qualify them as uniquely American in the same way as Tolkien was English - as they ultimately represent American myths filtered through a very European lens and miss small details that distinguish Tolkien. Similarly, a European hitchhiking across postwar US would not have been able to write On The Road because they would have been interested in all the wrong things.

Now that I think about it, I agree, Stephen King probably comes closest from a purely literary standpoint. He's still alive though, so there can't be a truly objective look at a complete body of work like Tolkien. I'd bet that in 100 years or so King will be considered on par with Charles Dickens and a definitive late 20th century American author.

If we want to include other forms like poetry - my vote definitely goes to Bob Dylan. There's very little about Americana that man hasn't covered and covered well. If there is mythology present in Dylan that mythology is a self-mythology centered on Dylan himself - a one man pantheon if you will.

While I'm on the subject, here's another question - does anyone seriously believe the Harry Potter novels could have ever been written by an American? If so, why?

The Oz stories are not a mythology, although they are specifically and intentionally American. They are a fairy-story. Folklore about early European-American heroes is not mythology, it's just folklore. Poetry about the American experience is not mythology, it's just poetry.

I would also refer you to the works of Manly Wade Wellman.

[rogatny]

What would mythic America look like?

Mythic New England: Hawthorne, Irving, and Lovecraft. Puritanical theocratic towns along the shore, full of merchants, whaling ships, and fire-breathing preachers. Surrounded by haunted woods, where horrible evil things await.

Mythic Big Cities: Crowded, corrupt, polluted. Straight out of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Scorcese's version of Gangs of New York. Dominated by Al Capone and Tammany Hall type figures. Home to Elliot Ness/Batman type of crusaders fighting against the evils of the city. Also home to the American wizard - Edison, Ford, Einstein, etc. - in wondrous ivory tower universities.

Mythic Midwest - Full of upright farmers. Straight out of The Music Man and Wizard of Oz. Origin point of heroes like Tom Sawyer, Abraham Lincoln, Johnny Appleseed, Dorothy Gale and every character Jimmy Stewart ever played. Who venture from their upstanding homes to set things right in the parts of Mythic America that aren't as upright as the Mythic Midwest. Mainly peaceful, except for the occasional disturbance from bandits like Jesse James, Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde or those in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. And then there are upright law-men who will always bring the bandits down and make them see justice.

Mythic Greater Virginia - Gone with the Wind facade hiding a first season of True Detective underbelly. Fine mansions and gentile people overlording a barbaric system of slavery. Produces roguish adventurers and soldiers like John Carter, Rhett Butler and Andrew Jackson who don't fit in to the civilized South, are honorable and glorious, even if the cause they are fighting for isn't always.

Mythic Swamp/Deep South - Magical bayou full of voodoo and alligators. Pirates and others living outside the law. Spanish conquistadors lost in time and still searching for the fountain of youth. Indians and runaway slaves fighting to stay free. Bluesmen selling their souls at the crossroad. Moonshiners. Hatfields versus the McCoys.

Mythic old west - straight out of a John Huston movie or a Zane Gray novel. Cowboys and Indians and banditos and cavalry men and gold miners and fantastic vistas and railroad workers.

Mythic North - Paul Bunyon and Dudley Do-Right. Like the Mythic Old West, but colder, with railroads and gold mines and grizzly bears and Eskimos and moose and totem poles.

[Kellri]

WHAT?! You mean it's not exactly like Shadowrun with nasty,overpopulated cities full of half-mutated orcs and elves standing in for minorities while outside are vast wilderness areas controlled by the once more ennobled native American savages?

[Falconer]

Excellent, rogatny!

[Terrex]

...

Very cool approach. Splitting up the U.S. geographically makes sense. This would make a good backdrop for a fantasy book with characters traveling and adventuring throughout mythical America.

[rogatny]

...

Very cool approach. Splitting up the U.S. geographically makes sense. This would make a good backdrop for a fantasy book with characters traveling and adventuring throughout mythical America.

Your archetypical fantasy adventuring group would be something like...

Soldier/athlete: Flash Gordon/Andrew Jackson
Preacher/politician: Oral Roberts/Cotton Mather
Technical Whiz/professor: Tomas Edison/Ben Franklin
Gangster/Criminal: Al Capone/Pretty Boy Floyd
Occultist/Voodoo priest: Tituba (from The Crucible)/Houdini
Every-man adventurer: Tom Sawyer/Davy Crockett

[rredmond]

I definitely like what you are doing rogatny!

But just to note that these posts made me very happy:

Lucas and maybe Roddenberry as well.

In that second sense, yeah - I would agree that maybe Star Wars or Star Trek comes closest to that. Star Trek might even be a better fit there as, at least the original series, quite often set out to tackle issues close to the American social consciousness of the day through stylized science fiction and in many cases outright allegory.
...
Although some, like Neil Gaiman amongst others, have made sincere stabs at writing that Great American fantasy, I would argue they haven't really sunk into the social consciousness of Americans as a mythology the same way that Star Trek has. I would argue there are very few adult Americans alive today who would not recognize Kirk & Spock, whether they like science fiction or not.

And IIRC Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek as very much a Western, or "Wagon Train to
the Stars" - also if memory serves, DeForest Kelley did a whole lot of Westerns before ST. Sorry for the mini-tangent/callback, work's been ridiculous otherwise I'd've commented sooner.

[Chainsaw]

Fuck you, Ron.

[Welleran]

Fuck you, Ron.

Someone just wants the unstable, but lovable, drunkard included.

[rredmond]

If we speak of mythology then Chainsaw is, of course, the Bacchus of The Alehouse! Certainly making him a Greater God indeed, or at least our patron saint.

[Chainsaw]

Fuck you, Ron.

Someone just wants the unstable, but lovable, drunkard included.

Over here, I punch you in the balls, Ron.