Fictions of Merry Mount

Abstract

yet been traced. From William Bradford to Robert Lowell, prominent historical writers have returned to Morton's short-lived plantation, finding within its small scope and tragicomic demise a symbolic conflict of great moment for the national future.' When the literary reach of an incident so outlasts its effect upon past events, its matter has become the stuff of legend. Verifiable information about its episodes, no longer of much concern to a political historian, assumes significance to the seeker of cultural mythology. Because historical literature tends to reshape the legends it claims to preserve, changes entering into the substance of such legends can be measured only by returning to the earliest records in an attempt to recover, if not historical truth, at least the extant data of original disagreements. To discuss the content of historical literature without an accompanying study of its historical subject is thus to ignore its ultimate import. For literary recreators of Merry Mount, the pull of myth-making upon the past has proven irresistable. The controversy, arising at the very beginnings of American civilization, offered sharply contrasting personalities in direct, often violent confrontation. Post-Revolutionary Americans, self-conscious about their national identity and needing to create a history, saw in Merry Mount an opportunity for reflection on the origins of the national character. In the very same incidents, twentieth century writers have traced the beginnings of failure, decline, or betrayal. For-