This exploration of the making of a legend compares the actual
events surrounding duster's defeat with the imaginative account of
the "Last Stand" as it developed in American folklore. The battle
of the Little Big Horn is then compared with other great "epics of
defeat" in terms of both the similarities of the narratives and the
known facts about them. The other epic stories include the Biblical
account of Saul and his losing struggle against the Philistines,
Leonidas's defense of the pass at Thermopylae, the death of Roland
in the Chanson de Roland, the Morte Arthure, and similar stories of
great "losers" from Scandinavia, Serbia, England, and the
Alamo.
The interaction between literary and oral folk versions is
explicated both for Custer and for his counterparts in other
cultures. Custer's defeat was celebrated by writers of various
stripes including dime novelist Frederick Whittaker, poets
Longfellow and Whitman, and by painters of all shades of talent.
The other epics have also been treated in both high culture and
popular culture forms. Certain aspects of the folk variants of the
legend of the defeated hero are shown to exist in legends and
anecdotes about such other charismatic figures as Presidents
Lincoln and Kennedy.
Finally, the book reinterprets several epics in the light of
these new findings. And it goes on to argue that the legend-making
process is one of the fundamental processes of the human
imagination--the dramatization of all reality. Custer is thus seen
as one with many national heroes whose popularity persists despite
all the known facts which seem to deflate them.
Custer and the Epic of Defeat is illustrated with realistic as
well as fanciful portraits of the heroes discussed, with
photographs of several "last stand" sites from the Little Big Horn
to Mt. Gilboa, and with battle maps.
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