Title: Resisting regionalism
First published: 1997
Description: When James Lane Allen defined the "Feminine Principle" and "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 1890s 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, Seribner'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, naturalism 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, and 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 Stephen 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.
Subjects: Masculinity in literature, Regionalism in literature, Femininity in literature, Naturalism in literature, History and criticism, Local color in literature, Women and literature, Authorship, American fiction, Sex differences, History, American fiction, history and criticism, 19th century, American fiction, history and criticism, 20th century, Gender identity in literature
Places: United States
Time periods: 20th century, 19th century
LC classification: PS374.R4 C36 1997