Representing Regionalism

Canadian Review of American Studies Volume 23, Number 2, Winter 1993, pp. 101-114 101 Representing Regionalism DavidJordan Over half a century ago, John Crowe Ransom defended regionalism against accusations of artistic naivete by suggesting that critics might examinewhat he referred to as an "aesthetic of regionalism." A few of his Fugitive-Agrarian colleagues took up the subject by hinting at how regionalism might mean more than just dressing up fiction with colourful local details. Robert Penn Warren, for example, praised Southern writers who "have not been content with the routine process of penetrating the surfaceof reported actuality," but who instead strove to portray the South "fromthe inside out" (xvi);and Donald Davidson referred to the "error" of "assumingthat the character of a regional art is determined principally by itssubject matter, which must be local and special," suggesting instead that criticsmight consider different modes of expression as evidence of distinct regionalsensibilities (268). The advent of the New Criticism diverted the Agrarians' attention awayfrom regional concerns before they further pursued the possibilities of anaesthetic of regionalism, and the country's headlong rush into yet another national war effort soon eclipsed what proved to be a short-lived public debate between regionalists and nationalists. Despite a recent resurgence of interest in regionalism, the exploration of alternate means of representing regionalismhas lain dormant for nearly half a century. While some recent innovative approaches to regionalism have increasedthe term's currency in contemporary critical discourse, regionalism in its more traditional sense of art emanating from a deep personal 102 Canadian Review of American Studies attachment to a specific geographic locale continues to be dogged by lingering assumptions about artistic naivete. Despite new insights into regionalism's cultural and environmental implications, popular perceptions of regionalist art have changed very little since E. K. Brown (24) declared nearly fifty years ago that "a warm emotion for one's petit pays can lead to very charming art .... In the end, however, regionalist art will fail because it stresses the superficial and the peculiar at the expense, at least, if not to the exclusion, of the fundamental and universal." Authors continue to feel impelled to apologize for their regionalism: W. 0. Mitchell, for example, declared defiantly that he "can't go to work on a piece unless I have some essentiallyhuman truth that ... I hope shall transcend time and region" (54); and Jack Hodgins (AlO) recently declared that despite his obvious personal attachment to Vancouver Island, he is "much more concerned with finding out what makes people the same anywhere." In spite of the growing recognition that expressing cultural difference can be a legitimate end in itself, regionalism continues to be viewed as a peripheral art form, legitimate only insofar as it contributes to a greater purpose. Popular perceptions of regionalism's artistic merits can be traced back to the late nineteenth century, when such magazines as Colliers and The SaturdayEvening Post were flooded with short stories chronicling daily life in rural communities across the United States. The surge of regionalist fiction in the United States at that time was fueled by rising nationalist sentiment and the belief that verisimilar depictions of diverse rural communities would capture a uniquely American national identity. As perhaps the most influential editor, author, and critic of the time, William Dean Howells was largelyresponsible for the outpouring of local fiction, and the principles that he voiced while exhorting authors to describe their local environs continue to underlie popular perceptions of regionalism that prevail in both the United States and Canada. To Howells, realism, regionalism, and nationalism were inseparable. Declaring that in order for American culture to break free from its British ancestry, "the arts must become democratic"; he praised authors who chronicled the daily lives of common citizens (66). He described the careful observation of local details as a "vertical" examination of national character, which he opposed to the "horizontal" sweep of heroic fiction typical of such David Jordan I 103 Britishwriters as Sir Walter Scott (67). Howells had a particular vision of thenational character that would emerge from such a vertical examination of the American environment: comparing America's "rarefied and nimble airfull of shining possibilities and radiant promises" to "the fog...