Become a Readings Member to make your shopping experience even easier. Sign in or sign up for free!

Become a Readings Member. Sign in or sign up for free!

Hello Readings Member! Go to the member centre to view your orders, change your details, or view your lists, or sign out.

Hello Readings Member! Go to the member centre or sign out.

Resisting Regionalism: Gender And Naturalism In American Fiction, 1885-1915
Hardback

Resisting Regionalism: Gender And Naturalism In American Fiction, 1885-1915

$181.99
Sign in or become a Readings Member to add this title to your wishlist.

When James Lane Allen defined the Feminine Principle and the Masculine Principle in American fiction for the Atlantic Monthly in 1897, he in effect described local color fiction and naturalism, two branches of realism often regarded as bearing little relationship to each other. In this award-winning study of both movements, Resisting Regionalism explores the effect the cultural dominance of women’s local color fiction in the 1890’s had on young male naturalist writers, who rebelled against the local colorists and their teacup tragedies.
An immensely popular genre, local color fiction reached its peak in the 1880s in such literary journals as Harper’s Monthly, Scribner’s, the Atlantic Monthly, and the Century. These short stories exhibited local characters, depicted marginal groups and vanishing folkways, and addressed issues of absence, loss, limitation, and the past. Despite such prickly themes, according to Donna Campbell, local color fiction fulfilled some specific needs of the public - for nostalgia, for a retreat into mildly exotic locales, for a semblance of order preserved in ritual.
By the turn of the century, however, local color fiction was fading from the scene, supplanted by writers of adventure fiction and historical romances, with whom local colorists increasingly merged, and opposed by the naturalists. In examining this historic shift, Resisting Regionalism shows that far from being distanced from local color fiction, nationalism emerged in part as a dissenting response to its popularity and to the era’s concerns about the dominance of feminine influence in American literature. The new generation of authors, including Crane, Norris, London, Frederic, Wharton, resisted the cultural myths and narrative strategies common to local colorists Sarah Orne Jewett, Rose Terry Cooke, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and Constance Fenimore Woolson. Yet, as Campbell underscores in her analysis of Stephan Crane’s The Monster, the naturalists could, and did, integrate local color conventions with the grotesque and horrifying to powerful effect. In clear, accessible prose, Resisting Regionalism provides fresh readings of naturalistic works in the context of the dispute between local color and naturalism. In the process, this book shows the debt naturalism owes to local color fiction and illuminates a neglected but significant literary era.

Read More
In Shop
Out of stock
Shipping & Delivery

$9.00 standard shipping within Australia
FREE standard shipping within Australia for orders over $100.00
Express & International shipping calculated at checkout

MORE INFO
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Ohio University Press
Country
United States
Date
30 June 1997
Pages
200
ISBN
9780821411773

When James Lane Allen defined the Feminine Principle and the Masculine Principle in American fiction for the Atlantic Monthly in 1897, he in effect described local color fiction and naturalism, two branches of realism often regarded as bearing little relationship to each other. In this award-winning study of both movements, Resisting Regionalism explores the effect the cultural dominance of women’s local color fiction in the 1890’s had on young male naturalist writers, who rebelled against the local colorists and their teacup tragedies.
An immensely popular genre, local color fiction reached its peak in the 1880s in such literary journals as Harper’s Monthly, Scribner’s, the Atlantic Monthly, and the Century. These short stories exhibited local characters, depicted marginal groups and vanishing folkways, and addressed issues of absence, loss, limitation, and the past. Despite such prickly themes, according to Donna Campbell, local color fiction fulfilled some specific needs of the public - for nostalgia, for a retreat into mildly exotic locales, for a semblance of order preserved in ritual.
By the turn of the century, however, local color fiction was fading from the scene, supplanted by writers of adventure fiction and historical romances, with whom local colorists increasingly merged, and opposed by the naturalists. In examining this historic shift, Resisting Regionalism shows that far from being distanced from local color fiction, nationalism emerged in part as a dissenting response to its popularity and to the era’s concerns about the dominance of feminine influence in American literature. The new generation of authors, including Crane, Norris, London, Frederic, Wharton, resisted the cultural myths and narrative strategies common to local colorists Sarah Orne Jewett, Rose Terry Cooke, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and Constance Fenimore Woolson. Yet, as Campbell underscores in her analysis of Stephan Crane’s The Monster, the naturalists could, and did, integrate local color conventions with the grotesque and horrifying to powerful effect. In clear, accessible prose, Resisting Regionalism provides fresh readings of naturalistic works in the context of the dispute between local color and naturalism. In the process, this book shows the debt naturalism owes to local color fiction and illuminates a neglected but significant literary era.

Read More
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Ohio University Press
Country
United States
Date
30 June 1997
Pages
200
ISBN
9780821411773