Transferring to America: Jewish Interpretations of American Dreams

321 Pages·1995·24.724 MB·English

by  Rael Meyerowitz

TRANSFERRING
TO
AMERICA
SUNY SERIES IN
PSYCHOLANALYSIS AND CULTURE
Henry Sussman, editor
SUNY SERIES IN
MODERN JEWISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Sarah Blacher Cohen, editor
TRANSFERRING
TO
AMERICA
Jewish Interpretations
of
American Dreams
RAEL MEYEROWITZ
STATE UNIVERSITY
OF NEW YORK PRESS
Published by
State University of New York Press
© 1995 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval
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otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, address the State University of New York Press,
State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246
Production by Bernadine Dawes • Marketing by Nancy Farrell
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Meyerowitz, Rael, 1953-
Transferring to America: Jewish interpretations of American dreamslRael
Meyerowitz.
p. cm. - (SUNY series in psychoanalysis and culture) (SUNY series
in modern Jewish literature and culture)
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7914-2607-6. - ISBN 0-7914-2608-4 (pbk.)
1. American literature-History and criticism-Theory, etc.
2. National characteristics, American, in literature. 3. Criticism-Jewish
authors-History-20th century. 4. Criticism-United States-History-
20th century. 5. Jews-Cultural assimilation-United States. 6. Immigrants
United States-Psychology. 7. Psychoanalysis and literature. 8. Bercovitch,
Sacvan. 9. Cavell, Stanley, 1926- . 10. Bloom, Harold. I. Title. II. Series.
III. Series: SUNY series in modern Jewish literature and culture.
PS27.M49 1995 94-43358
CIP
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Rabbi Tarphon said: "The day is short and the
work is great, and the laborers are sluggish,
and the wages are high and the householder
is urgent." He used to say: "The work is not upon
thee to finish, nor art thou free to desist from it.
If thou hast learned much Torah they give thee
much wages; and faithful is the master of thy
work who will pay thee the wages of thy toil.
And know that the giving of the reward to the
righteous is in the time to come."
Ethics of the Fathers
But do your work and I shall know you. Do your
work, and you shall reinforce yourself
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
Thus inevitably does the universe wear our color,
and every object fall successively into the subject
itself The subject exists, the subject enlarges;
all things sooner or later fall into place.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Experience"

Contents
Preface • ix
Acknowledgments • xvii
Introduction:
The Tactics of Cultural Integration • 1
Part One
1. Sources of Assistance:
French Theory and Psychoanalysis • 41
2. Prospects of Culture:
Interpreting American Dreams • 77
Part Two
3. Wrest(l)ing Authority:
The Agonism of Harold Bloom ·127
4. Finding Acknowledgment:
The Inheritance of Stanley Cavell • 167
5. Identifying Rhetorics:
The Acculturation of Sacvan Bercovitch • 215
Conclusion • 261
Notes • 275
Index· 295

Preface
It will soon become evident to readers that this project is in no small
measure the fruit of my own fairly recent transfer, and hence trans
ference, to America, so I might as well acknowledge as much at the
outset and declare it without further ado. On the other hand, however,
a self-dramatizing opening gambit or preemptive confession does run
the risk of seeming too defensive. Have I not already made myself
vulnerable to the suspicion that what is about to ensue is rather more
a product of idiosyncratic speculation and projection than of thorough
scholarly endeavor? Resisting such implications as strenuously as
possible, I would claim that there is also less cautious method in this
self-consciously personal opening and general approach, and that
what may appear to be an effort to excuse myself in advance should
rather be taken as the attempt to secure an opportunity for somewhat
freer and more personal expression than academic decorum might
otherwise allow, and to make room thereby for the legitimate stakes
of my own participation in the issues that this book is to treat.
For my writing about the three Jewish scholars of American
literature who are the prime subjects of this book-Harold Bloom,
Stanley Cavell, and Sacvan Bercovitch-is fueled at least in part by
a particular sense of myself, during this, my first and by now quite
prolonged sojourn in America, though still as a disoriented wanderer
in this most occidental of lands. So let me begin by openly indicating
some of the "autobiographical" factors motivating this work, by giving
a brief account of how I arrived here and came to write this book.
I was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, in a moder
ately traditional Jewish home, where we spoke English, though my
father's first language is Yiddish and my mother's Afrikaans. My
father, in fact, was himself a first-generation Jewish immigrant from
Lithuania who still lives in Cape Town, and my mother, at first neither
ix