ABSTRACT
The wide ranging productions of Timothy Dwight reflect Americans' search for cultural and international security in the country's first years. While Federalists debated how to consolidate American political independence, Dwight urged Americans, and the world, to realize American high culture existed - based, ironically, on European aristocrats' recognition of American fine arts. In declaring American genius Dwight showed Americans' postcolonial ambivalence about their former possessor Britain. Deeply embedded British cultural and intellectual life inspired the desire to keep up with European trends and placed Americans at the mercy of European tastemakers. But in their very patronage by Europeans American artists were gaining foreign acclaim, which Dwight craved more than praise by American cultural neophytes. Military conflict in North America between Britain and France exposed Americans to the debauchery of European civilization. Historically Protestant ideologues like Dwight, when referring to the symbol of 'the Beast' in the Book of Revelation, had meant Roman Catholicism.
