The Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America

This book traces the manifold functions of 'America' - as a view of history, a spiritual ideal, a myth of origins and a mode of identity, in the work of major influential writers from the Revolution to the Civil War.

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: The Music of America 2. The Ritual of Consensus 3. The Ends of Puritan Rhetoric 4. Cotton Mather and the Vision of America 5. The Typology of Mission, from Edwards to Independence 6. Continuing Revolution: George Bancroft and the Myth of Progress 7. The Return of Hester Prynne 8. Pierre, or the Ambiguities of Literary History 9. Emerson, Individualism, and Liberal Dissent 10. The Problem of Ideology in American Literary Studies Endnotes Index