Honoring American Culture: Literary Classics
Contributed by Doug Ferguson
As we gear up to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, it is important to remember how the work of our American authors contributed to and represented the unique United States culture of freedom, along with its implied responsibilities to be a citizen.
Author, writer and emeritus professor Mark Bauerlein of Emory University brings this concept home in his most recent April article in the Epoch Times: “American Classics Worth Celebrating This July”. Here he gives a brief review of a few authors of literary heritage such as Ben Franklin, Horatio Alger, William Faulkner, Ralph Waldo Emerson, etc. and how they helped shape our culture.
For instance, Bauerlein points out that Franklin’s” “Autobiography” is an “—archetypical rags-to-riches American plot. We find elements of it in the Horatio Alger stories, ‘The Great Gatsby’, William Faulkner’s ‘Absalom, Absalom!’, and Washington’s ‘Up From Slavery”, and many more.” He then goes on to show how these authors delt with free speech, self-reliance, anti-tradition, and a host of other freedom-oriented topics and how these writings made their way into the public conscience by means of speeches, personal lectures, required readings in education and other venues.
All in all, it is a very strong argument for including a remembrance of these authors and their writings in our 250th Anniversary celebrations.
Here in Palmer at St. John’s Lutheran Church a group has been celebrating the 4th of July there for the past several years. If you also wish to celebrate and learn more about the unique aspects of our American culture, you can attend and even participate in this rededication of the Declaration of Independence event.
They are planning to have a field black powder cannon that will be fired during the ceremony and wish to have as many people as possible dressed in colonial outfits to create the historic atmosphere along with the reading of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. They are looking for speakers, entertainers, and musicians with relevant material that can be worked into the program. The celebration is planned for 3PM. on the Green adjacent to the Church, weather permitting, in plenty of time to get back from the 4th parade in Wasilla.
If you wish to get involved yourself, please contact Scott at moscapoet@gmail.com for more details.
Doug Ferguson is a retired engineer who moved to Alaska in 2017 to be near family and has had a lifelong interest in science, gardening and, of course, history.