Western Regional Fiction Presentation Jeff Ramsay

What is Western American regionalism? I feel like Ayers's "all over the map." A vast sprawling topic/place full of opportunity for a great mixture of critical opinion. Regionalism. Fiction of the American West. American fiction generally. The term is very fluid. So, I offer a blurry picture composed of critical annotations and some personal opinion.

Generally, sources describe Western regionalism as starting with Bret Harte. It is realistic yet Edenically romantic and optimistic yet nostalgic. It records history yet presents exaggeration. It celebrates strange talk, lone good frontier heroes and stalwart families all in a wide open country that sometimes breeds the Naturalistic. It is arguably the quintessential American fiction that parents local color and, just perhaps, all subsequent American fictions.

Donna Campbell: All local color mixes romanticism and realism typically in a nostalgic, sentimental short story. Eric Sundquist and Richard Brodhead both declare this text from the margins a unifying force. All l.c. tends to have challenging natural worlds and remote settings. Characters use dialect and stick to "the old ways". I say that this all fits cowboy fiction. Frequent thorough description marks regionalism. I see Twain in this.

Max Herzberg: Westerns are nearly uniquely American literature. Mid 19^th-century genre that is supposedly true adventure stories in popular press and actually fact-based. Westerns are both stylized yarns and enduring human reflections. A notable dime novelist is Edward Zane Carroll Judson, and a serious authors are Owen Wister and Zane Grey. Wister's The Virginian (1902) established the genre critically.

Literary History of the United States: A thorough fifteen page overview. It has highlights unmentioned elsewhere. "Literature of discovery" ranging from the truthful scientific to the exaggerating local color. Romantic capturing of frontiersman and miner before they disappear. I say compare Twain and Jackson. A celebration of the common man. I find this in 19^th-century criticism such as Fred Lewis Pattee's writings. Not new, but newly celebrated were dialect, homely sentiment, realistic rural life, and natural grandeur. We should always note Harte's prominent role and that of women. Ecocritically (my term), the 19^th-c West produced many nature writers such as John Muir and Clarence King. And, I add Theodore Roosevelt. Overall, remember that the Western tradition relies on much legend over fact.

Gerald Haslam: Jack Schaefer says that most Western stories are "escape literature" and that many stories are "code Westerns." Haslam proposes Western fiction established the American short story tradition. Western fictions arose to replace formulaic sentimental texts, to recognize oral tradition (i.e. tall tales), and to offer publishers easily reprintable short fiction. Cooper and Irving celebrated the West and Frontier of their days in the 1830s-1840s. I add Thoreau. Haslam says that dime novel authors, Wister, Grey, Cather, and many more he lists brought the West to America. The Western evolved into pulps, paperbacks, movies, and present historical (more than romantic) fiction.

James Maguire: In the 1890s, Frank Norris notes "The Frontier has become conscious of itself, acts the part for the Eastern visitor." Post-1890s writers reacted to the Frontier closing; they built a national lit from Old West legends. Until the 1960s, this school practiced its "literary boosterism." Until 1960s, the West represents a romantic conservatism through population growth and new land use. I say that it still does. Maguire claims Vietnam Era changed all that. Some Western sensibility produces Naturalists: Norris, London, Cather.

Shawn Swisher: Swisher studies Bret Harte, the noted impetus for Western fiction. Harte presents characters who are stereotypes and humorous. His work is repetitive--but well-selling. I think that society desires certain repeated heroic frontier tales. Harte was his own editor at Overland Monthly. Twain liked his dialect; Dickens his details.

Kathryn VanSpanckeren: VanSpanckeren celebrates the New Regionalism brought by Deborah Rosenfelt and Leonore Hoffmann. Once again, our nation seeks national unity, and all regionalisms help reconcile us. Silko, Momaday, Erdrich, Didion, and Stegner nurture this endeavor.

Harry Warfel and G. Harrison Orians: The quintessential critical text on local color. The authors recognize that Harte started the movement but that Cooper and Irving preceded him. Harte looked at life's lower phases and was new in his day. But, he never gained intellectual depth or psychological insight. The Western "historical romance" inspired the rest of the local colorists.

What are Western fiction's roots? The genre's many precursors fall within frontier fiction. Perhaps the most prominent ancestors are Natty Bumpo and Davey Crockett. But, any gunfighter living in the wilds counts as an early "cowboy" fighting the Indians, shooting straight, living tall tales, talking strange, and otherwise being of the genre. Before America, the Romantic knight in exotic lands might count.

Practitioners: We can look on Campbell and Webb's pages. But, besides their listed authors, I mention Thoreau, L. M. Alcott, G.W. Harris and the other Southwest Humorists, and many folk and c & m lyricists.

Present-day cowboy fiction: Any American Adam might qualify shooting his way about the wilds while remaining unattached to womenfolk and society. Clint Eastwood plays many Western fiction roles: Man with No Name, Philo Betto, Dirty Harry. Easy Rider (although mainly in South) or other roadtrip texts count. Cop shows count. TV and movie Westerns count. Comic books count. Space operas and their space cowboys (e.g. Han Solo and Cowboy Bebop) count. Travelogues count.The escape to the West: Las Vegas, Colorado ski-bumming, Wyoming rodeo. Any adventurous types in strange lands of wild folk count.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Campbell, Donna. "Regionalism and Local Color Fiction, 1865-1895." Donna Campbell,

Gonzaga University. 25 Nov. 2003. Gonzaga U. 5 Apr. 2004

http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/en1311/lcolor.html

Haslam, Gerald W. "The Western Story." A Literary History of the American West.

1. TX Christian U. 5 Apr. 2004

Herzberg Max J. "Westerns." The Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. New

York: Crowell, 1962. 1212.

Maguire, James H. "Settled In: Many Wests." A Literary History of the American West.

1. TX Christian U. 5 Apr. 2004

Swisher, Shawn. Bret Harte: The Birth of American Regionalism and Realism. E TN S

1. 6 Apr. 2004 http://www.etsu.edu/writing/amlit_sum00/papers/bharte.htm

VanSpanckeren, Kathryn. "The New Regionalism." From Revolution to Reconstruction

. . . and what happened afterwards. 3 Jun. 2003. Faculteit der Letteren.

6 Apr. 2004 http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/LIT/ch8_p6.htm

Warfel, Harry R. and G. Harrison Orians. American Local-Color Stories. New York:

American, 1941.

"Western Record and Romance." Literary History of the United States. Ed. Robert E.

Spiller et al. 4^th ed. New York: MacMillan, 1974. 862-77.