IV.3.Regionalism and Local Colorism

Focus of Study Regionalism Background: Definition Local Colorism Definition Background Basic Features

Regionalism Background 1.The shift of the

publishing center from Boston to New York--a greater openness to authors from all parts of America.

2.The growth of communication and transportation after the Civil War.

3. The rapid growth of local magazines.

Definition

It stresses fidelity to a particular geographical section and a faithful representation of its habits, speech, manners, history, folklore, or beliefs.

It focuses on characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other features particular to a specific region.

Its weaknesses may include nostalgia or sentimentality

Characteristics Setting: are frequently remote

and inaccessible. Characters: are marked by

their adherence to the old ways, by dialect, and by particular personality traits central to the region.

Narrator: is typically an educated observer from the world beyond who learns something from the characters.

Plots: Stories may include lots of

storytelling and revolve around the community and its rituals.

Themes: Many local color stories

share an antipathy to change and a certain degree of nostalgia for an always-past golden age.

Local color fiction Definitions: It exploits the speech,

dress, mannerisms, habits of thought, and topography peculiar to a certain region.

Hamlin Garland defined it as having "such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native."

Background People realized the

marked differences in different parts of the country and tried to assert their unique identity and seek understanding and recognition by showing their local character.

The frontier humorists who had been popular with their "tall tales" before the Civil War paved the way for local color fiction.

Basic Features 1. Local color fiction

presents a locale which is distinguished from the outside world.

2. It describes the exotic and the picturesque.

3. It glorifies the past.4. It also attempts to show

things as they are.5. It stresses the influence

of setting on character.

Significance Local color fiction convinced people that the

common life of the common people in the backwoods and on the frontiers of American society was worthy of serious literary treatment.

This literary movement contributed to the reunification of the country after the Civil War and to the building of national identity toward the end of the nineteenth century.

It contributed to the narrative of unified nationhood that late nineteenth-century America sought to construct.

Study Questions

1. What is basic features of Regionalism? 2. What is basic features of Local Colorism? 3. Can you make a distinction between

Local Colorism and Regionalism? 4. Please give the historical background of

the rise of Local Color Fiction in American literature.

References

Glazener, Nancy. Reading for Realism. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1997.

Bartholow V. Crawford et al., American literature. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.. 1980.

Dareel Abel, American literature. New York: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.,1963.

George McMichael et al., ed. Anthology of American Literature. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1980.

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