The American Jeremiad

by Sacvan Bercovitch

"This is a dazzling performance. It supplies conceptual links between phenomena where historians have often sensed a connection without being able to describe it adequately. . . [Bercovitch] has written intellectual history at the highest level."—Edmund S. Morgan, New York Review of Books

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, American History, Literary Criticism

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Sacvan Bercovitch was a Canadian literary and cultural critic who spent most of his life teaching and writing in the United States. He received his B.A. at Sir George Williams College (now Concordia University) in 1958, and his Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University) in 1965. Bercovitch taught at Brandeis, the University of California-San Diego, Princeton, and at Columbia from 1970 to 1984. From 1984 until he retired in 2001 he taught at Harvard, where he held the Powell M. Cabot Professorship in American Literature.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A jeremiad is a style of literature, either in prose or in verse, in which the author expresses his or her despair for the state of contemporary society and its morals, and prophesies its imminent downfall because of its sins. Born in the pulpits of medieval Europe, it was brought to America by the Puritans, who couldn’t wait to employ it in the New World. Indeed, as Sacvan Bercovitch notes, the first “American” jeremiad of note was delivered not in Massachusetts but at sea aboard the Arbella as it transported the first wave of Puritans and their provisions to their new home. Even before they had a chance to begin, the Puritans were warning of their failure.

Instead, the colony thrived, forming an important cultural and moral foundation for the nation that followed. And because of this, the jeremiad became an important rhetorical form, used by preachers, authors, and politicians to critique the world and express their anxieties about their fate. Bercovitch’s book describes the evolution of the jeremiad from its early use by the Puritans through its adoption as a “national ritual” in the early republic and the antebellum era. It's a dense work that can make for challenging reading, especially as Bercovitch assumes his audience’s possession of a wide-ranging familiarity with early American history and religion, as well as the seminal texts of American literature. Nor does his writing, which often comes across as more of a transcribed lecture studded with qualifications and rhetorical turns, help make his arguments clear. Yet for those who persist with the text, Bercovitch delivers a profoundly informative analysis of a rhetorical form that helps to define America itself.

Central to this is Bercovitch’s demonstration of how jeremiads became the medium for making the millennialist argument for America. As the original Puritans and their descendants regularly argued, the struggles of the present needed to be borne so that those suffering them could enjoy a brighter tomorrow. This infused their labors with a sense of mission, one that transcended their internal quarrels to unite them as a community. Such unity was necessary lest the community collapse and the colony fail, a danger that was both real and metaphorical at the same time. This forward-looking concept of self, Bercovitch argues, became one of the key inheritances from the Puritans for subsequent generations, as it was this mission which distinguished the colonists’ plantation and fueled their motivation to succeed.

Succeeding generations of Puritans continued to hear such jeremiads as their leaders worried that their earthly pursuits were distracting them from their godly mission. To this was added castigation for ingratitude, the claim that they were not just failing the Lord, but their forefathers as well. Thanks to its continuing use, the rhetorical tool was such a familiar part of colonial rhetoric by the 18th century that it was only natural for it to be adopted by activists as they argued for their rights in the 1760s and 1770s, with their contemporary struggle requiring a sacrifice necessary to ensure the success of the colonists’ collective mission. Through it emerged an ideological consensus that came to define the new nation that emerged after the revolution: a visionary model of national uniqueness, destined for greatness but faced with innumerable threats to its ultimate success.

Such a summary can convey the scope of Bercovitch’s argument, but not its depth. He grounds his analysis in a close reading of sermons, essays, and other literature ranging over two centuries of American history. From this he provides a better understanding of Puritan thought and its contribution to American culture, while offering insights into the role it played in defining America’s national identity. It’s a rich work that rewards the reader’s patience with enlightenment, and remains an invaluable study for those who want to better understand a rhetorical form that was not only an enormously important tool for understanding American identity, but one that remains in common use today.

[John Tessitore · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few weeks after Sacvan Bercovitch died, in December 2014, a New York Times obituary identified him as a scholar of New England Puritanism. That designation always struck me as proof of a profound misunderstanding of Bercovitch's work. He often wrote about the Puritans--and nowhere more effectively than in The American Jeremiad--but he was always after bigger fish. For Bercovitch, Puritan literature was the means to a very particular and radical end.

In his life's work, Bercovitch tried to explain why, as he says in this book, "[t]he revelation of America serves to blight, and ultimately to preclude, the possibility of fundamental change." In other words, he wanted to explain why America has remained as stable as it has, resolutely middle class in outlook, and why there's never been a legitimate threat to the socio-economic order.

And it is in this context that one can say about The American Jeremiad what Bercovitch himself wrote about Alexis de Tocqueville and D.H. Lawrence: It is "a foreigner's inside view of the consensus...profoundly in touch with the ritual dynamics of the [American] myth." It's not just another book about the Puritans.

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A difficult but highly ambitious and wide-ranging book that outlines a continuity of "rhetoric and ritual" from the Puritans through the writers of the American Renaissance. Centered around the literary form of the Jeremiad, Bercovitch stresses the American innovation to the millennial vision, which fused the figural and the literal in ambiguous synthesis. He ends with an examination of the "Symbol of America" which still seems relevant to our national political discourse today.

[Ryan Murtha · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been a compelling 20-page article.

[Elise · Rating 2 out of 5]

A struggle... my prof warned us and he was right. Some parts were interesting but I couldn’t focus anywhere. I’m sure it’s full of fascinating and important details but it was lost on me. God help me on my presentation on this... I am not part of his chosen people

[Bahar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some get 2 stars, Amanda 😜

[Jake Maguire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bercovitch's book is an American Studies classic, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that its project is both unworkably broad and overreaching. The rhetorical arc Bercovitch traces is a good and useful find, but his ambitious assertion that the Jeremiad precludes history (re: change) by virtue of BEING America's history is truistic and over the top.

[Paulambkh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pilgrims from England brought with them an idea of settling America with God's chosen people from England = christians, their social identity. "Over and again the colonial Jeremiahs portray the settlers as a people of God in terms of election." The combination of the political with the religious creates the objective, the "errand," in the American Jeremiad. Very informative and revealing for today's social/politcal climate. After a recommendation from a friend, and reading some reviews, I started reading this book, a "challenge" in my book club choices, with the intention of only 10 pages per day, so as not to adandon it early. I more than doubled that daily goal, reading and considering every word. It is easy to understand, if you are mindful. Definitely not something to skim, skip, or hurry, if you are interested in our country. It won't make you an expert, but information and knowledge are good things.

[Ray Du · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty hard to read, but an American studies essential.

[Pat]

I'm in American Studies, so of course I own it! Read it yet? Nope!

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly interesting, a must read to understand America.

[Ivan Pelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting work but even as academic books go holy Lord that was dense.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look at the extended impact of the Puritan rhetorical form of the American Jeremiad. Looking at the American Jeremiad as a ritual, Bercovitch traces the evolution of its rhetoric as a mode of socialization that ultimately shaped middle class American culture.

[Skyler · Rating 1 out of 5]

A most soppy soporific. Maybe it's irresponsible to discount the important/influential role this work has played within the field of American Studies, but I could not get through three pages in a row without falling asleep.