American literary regionalism - Wikipedia American literary regionalism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search This article is part of a series on the Culture of the United States of America Society History Language People Race and ethnicity Religion Arts and literature Architecture Art Dance Fashion Literature Comics Poetry Music Sculpture Theater Other Cuisine Festivals Folklore Media Newspapers Radio Cinema TV Internet Pornography Mythology Sport Symbols Flag Great Seal Monuments Motto Anthem Bird World Heritage Sites United States portal v t e American literary regionalism or local color is a style or genre of writing in the United States that gained popularity in the mid to late 19th century into the early 20th century. In this style of writing, which includes both poetry and prose, the setting is particularly important and writers often emphasize specific features such as dialect, customs, history, and landscape, of a particular region: "Such a locale is likely to be rural and/or provincial."[1] Regionalism is influenced by both 19th-century realism and romanticism, adhering to a fidelity of description in the narrative but also infusing the tale with exotic or unfamiliar customs, objects, and people. Literary critics argue that nineteenth-century literary regionalism helped preserve American regional identities while also contributing to domestic reunification efforts after the Civil War.[2] Richard Brodhead argues in Cultures of Letters, "Regionalism's representation of vernacular cultures as enclaves of tradition insulated from larger cultural contact is palpably a fiction ... its public function was not just to mourn lost cultures but to purvey a certain story of contemporary cultures and of the relations among them" (121).[3] Amy Kaplan, in contrast, debates race relations, empire, and literary regionalism in the nineteenth century, noting that, "The regions painted with 'local color' are traversed by the forgotten history of racial conflict with prior regional inhabitants, and are ultimately produced and engulfed by the centralized capitalist economy that generates the desire for retreat" (256). Critic Eric Sundquist ultimately suggests the social inequity inherent in the aesthetic distinction between realist and regionalist authors: "Economic or political power can itself be seen to be definitive of a realist aesthetic, in that those in power (say, white urban males) have been more often judged 'realists,' while those removed from the seats of power (say, Midwesterners, blacks, immigrants, or women) have been categorized as regionalists" (503).[4] Regional writers[edit] James Lane Allen[5] Mary Austin[5] Wendell Berry Alice Brown[5] George Washington Cable[6][5] Erskine Caldwell Alice Cary[5] Willa Cather Charles W. Chesnutt[5] Kate Chopin[5] Irvin S. Cobb August Derleth Alice Dunbar Nelson[5] Edward Eggleston[6][5] Sui Sin Far William Faulkner Mary E. Wilkins Freeman[5] Richard Ford Zona Gale[5] Hamlin Garland[5] Ellen Glasgow Davis Grubb Joel Chandler Harris[6][5] Bret Harte[6][5] Pauline Hopkins Sarah Orne Jewett[5] Grace King[5] Harper Lee Carson McCullers John Trotwood Moore Willie Morris Mary Noailles Murfree[5] John Neal Flannery O'Connor Thomas Nelson Page[6][5] Suzan-Lori Parks Charles Portis Ron Rash Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings James Whitcomb Riley[6][5] Harriet Beecher Stowe[5] Gene Stratton-Porter Jesse Stuart Celia Thaxter[5] Maurice Thompson John Kennedy Toole Mark Twain[6][5] Robert Penn Warren Sam. R. Watkins Manly Wade Wellman Eudora Welty Thomas Wolfe Constance Fenimore Woolson[6][5] Martha Strudwick Young Zitkala-Sa[5] References[edit] ^ J.A Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984, p.560. ^ "The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture — Amy Kaplan | Harvard University Press". www.hup.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2017-04-18. ^ Cultures of Letters. ^ Elliott, Emory (1991). The Columbia History of the American Novel. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231073608. Columbia Literary History of the novel. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Campbell, Donna M. (2017-10-10). "Regionalism and Local Color Fiction, 1865-1895". Dept. of English, Washington State University. Retrieved 2021-01-19. ^ a b c d e f g h Blight, David W. (2001). Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England. p. 444 (note 21). ISBN 0-674-00819-7. Bibliography[edit] "New England in the Short Story." Atlantic Monthly 67 (1891): 845–850. Wood, Ann D. "The Literature of Impoverishment: The Women Local Colorists in America, 1865–1914." Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1 (1972): 3–46. Donovan, Josephine (1983) New England Local Color Literature: A Women's Tradition. New York: Ungar. Emory Elliott, ed. (1988). "Regionalism: A Diminished Thing". Columbia Literary History of the United States. Columbia University Press. pp. 761–784. ISBN 978-0-585-04152-0. Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, ed. (1989). "Regionalism and Local Color". Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. University of North Carolina Press. Amy Kaplan (1991). "Nation, Region, and Empire". In Emory Elliott (ed.). Columbia History of the American Novel. Columbia University Press. pp. 240–266. ISBN 978-0-231-07360-8. Richard H. Brodhead (1993). Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-07526-6. Nickels, Cameron C. New England Humor: From the Revolutionary War to the Civil War. 1st ed. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993. Nancy Glazener (1997). Reading for Realism: The History of a U.S. Literary Institution, 1850-1910. Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-1870-9. (Discusses magazines such as Atlantic Monthly, The Century, Harper's Monthly, The Nation, Scribners) Pryse, Marjorie. "Origins of American Literary Regionalism: Gender in Irving, Stowe, and Longstreet." In Breaking Boundaries: New Perspectives on Women's Regional Writing, edited by Sherrie A. Inness and Diana Royer, pp. 17–37. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1997 Stephanie Foote (2001). Regional Fictions: Culture and Identity in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-17113-1. Witschi, N.S. (2002). Traces of Gold: California's Natural Resources and the Claim to Realism in Western American Literature. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0-8173-1117-3. Judith Fetterley; Marjorie Pryse (2003). Writing Out of Place: Regionalism, Women, and American Literary Culture. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-02767-3. Judith Fetterley; Marjorie Pryse, eds. (1992). American Women Regionalists. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31363-8. Lutz, Tom. Cosmopolitan Vistas: American Regionalism and Literary Value. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004. via Google Books Donna M. Campbell (2006). "Regionalism and Local Color Fiction". In Tom Quirk; Gary Scharnhorst (eds.). American History Through Literature, 1870-1920. 3. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 9780684314938. Philip Joseph (2007). American Literary Regionalism in a Global Age. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-3188-6. v t e Culture of the United States by locale Culture by city or metropolitan area Baltimore Boston Chicago Cincinnati Columbus Dallas Detroit Houston Jacksonville Los Angeles Miami New Orleans New York City Brooklyn Omaha Philadelphia Pittsburgh San Antonio San Diego San Francisco Seattle St. Louis Virginia Beach Culture by state Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Culture by region Mid-Atlantic Midwest New England South Federal district Washington, D.C. 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