Virgin Land: The American West As Symbol and Myth

[Werner Presber]

Virgin Land:  The American West as Symbol and Myth

Ian Finseth
The University of Virginia
12/9/94

As a mythological study of the American West, Virgin Land may be 
brought into sharper focus both by providing a more precise definition 
of myth that Henry Nash Smith assays, and by disentangling the thematic 
strands of myth that run through his landmark study.  While Smith does 
a thorough job in describing particular myths -- their background, 
color, appeal to the mind, and so forth -- he is not particularly 
concerned with theoretical issues or with structuring his work around 
the various axes implied by a theoretical approach. Virgin Land is 
arranged more or less chronologically, tracing the concept of The West 
from the long-standing question for a "Passage to India," through 
various literary modes of expression and political and economic 
transformations, and finally to the settlement of the West and 
Frederick Jackson Turner's articulation of the "frontier hypothesis" in 
1893 -- with many side roads and auxiliary topics supporting Smith's 
thesis along the way.  An alternative method of navigating Virgin Land 
is to follow the individual strands of mythological construction that, 
taken together, weave the texture of Smith's central thesis.

The birth and life of a myth (in a sense, they never die) may be 
roughly divided into seven major stages of development.  It should be 
understood that these categories are rigid in rubric only; there is 
significant overlap between them, and echoes from one to another.  A 
hypertext approach to Virgin Land , however, necessarily entails some 
type of schematization.

The following seven sections form a "home-page," or base of operations, 
from which you may navigate Virgin Land mythologically.  Choosing one 
of the seven will first take you to a brief explanation of the category 
and a series of thought-provoking questions, and then allow you to 
branch out into the book to see a variety of illustrative examples.  
The assortment of examples does not pretend to be comprehensive; 
rather, it is designed to stimulate thought and encourage an 
alternative vision of Smith's work.

The Motivations of Myth
Mechanisms of Myth's Creation
The Character of Myth
Dissemination of Myth
The Power of Myth over History
The Power of History over Myth
Competition between Myths

read more:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/
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