Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860

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University of Oklahoma Press, 2000 - Literary Criticism - 670 pages

In Regeneration Through Violence, the first of his trilogy on the mythology of the American West, Richard Slotkin shows how the attitudes and traditions that shape American culture evolved from the social and psychological anxieties of European settlers struggling in a strange new world to claim the land and displace the Native Americans. Using the popular literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries-including captivity narratives, the Daniel Boone tales, and the writings of Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Melville-Slotkin traces the full development of this myth.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Myth and Literature in a New World
3
European vs American
25
The Origin of
57
The Archetype of the Captivity
94
Captivity Mythology
116
Initiation
146
The Search for a Hero and the Problem of
180
The Evolution of Literary
223
The Emergence of a Hero 1784
268
Farmer to Hunter
313
The Frontier Myth
369
The Boone Myth
394
The Leatherstocking Myth
466
A Pyramid of Skulls
517
Copyright

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Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860
Richard Slotkin
No preview available - 1996

Common terms and phrases

acceptance American appeared archetypal association attempt bear became become begins blood Boone Boone's called captivity character Christian Church civilization colonies concept conventional culture dark death divine dreams emigration England English Europe European experience expression fact fear figure Filson's follows forces French frontier give hand heart hero human hunter hunting Ibid identity Indian initiation John killed kind King land landscape later literary literature live manner marriage Mather means mind moral myth mythology narrative nature offered original passion pattern political popular present published Puritan Quaker quest reason reflect religious represented ritual Romantic savage seeking seems seen sense social society soul spirit suggests symbolic things tion traditional tribe true turn universe values virtues vision wars West western wild wilderness woods writers

References to this book

About the author (2000)

Richard Slotkin is Olin Professor of English and Director of American Studies at Wesleyan University. He is the author of Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 and Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of Frontier in Twentieth-Century America, published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Regeneration Through Violence
TitleRegeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860
AuthorRichard Slotkin
Editionillustrated, reprint, revised
PublisherUniversity of Oklahoma Press, 2000
ISBN0806132299, 9780806132297
Length670 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Literary Criticism / American / General
  
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