ABSTRACT
Anti-Americanism is a general cultural phenomenon, something best understood in terms of overarching historical and socioeconomic considerations—as for example the truth that the American capacity to produce objects worth hating is not decreasing, or the truth that the English capacity to restrain envy is not increasing. The first fruit of the scrutiny, descending at once to particulars, is the disclosure that for English writers the Matter of Anti-Americanism is a valuable aesthetic resource. The resources mentioned are classifiable under four rubrics—Tone, Vocabulary, Genre, and Metaphor. And of these four the tonal resource ranks first in importance— which is to say, the commonest bookish use of the Matter of Anti-Americanism at present is as a means of deepening one's literary voice or persona. Conceivably the anti-anti-Americanist cause will be weakened by the disclosure that the Matter of Anti-Americanism is becoming increasingly valuable as a mechanism for the expression of purely local English hostilities.
