A Systematic Study of Regionalism in American Literature

本文作者田中久雄试图从地区主义的角度探讨美国四大地区的文学表现--传统上划分的地区，即东部、南部、中西部和西部。然而，田中遇到了与J·M·考克斯相同的困难，考克斯在《美国哥伦比亚文学史》(1988)中的一篇名为《地区主义：一个消减的东西》的文章中承认，“它(西方)都是未来和流动性的--它是美国”，因此没有适当地执行他最初为这一项目提出的研究计划。田中仍然试图平等地看待这四个地区，敏锐地意识到先入为主的观点的顽固性，即历史上东方对其他地区拥有文化霸权。然而，他对威廉·福克纳和他所在的地区--南方--的关注如此之大，以至于比其他地区更多地研究它的倾向是无法完全避免的。然而，他有e…更努力地将性别、阶级和种族这三个关键的关键观点纳入他的考虑范围，并适当注意宗教、种族或年龄等因素。此外，他还试图参考一些重要的批评作品，如F.Jameson的《地缘政治美学》(1995)和H.K.巴巴的《文化的位置》(1994)。因此，研究人员研究了各个地区在历史上和社会上有意识或无意识地内化的身份或形象与通过文学、电影或照片等外部大众媒体赋予每个地区的身份或形象的复合力之间的相互联系。事实上，地区性特征无疑正在减弱，但总体上仍然是这样的，即东部仍然保留着清教徒的情感和对其田园诗般的过去的回忆，尽管程度不如以前；尽管从过去的民权运动的磨难中复苏，并在逐渐变化的过程中，南部仍然是一个同质的地区；中西部一直自豪地支持其平等主义精神，具有不同的流动性；西部始终面向未来，尽管R.Carver的国家与这样的风景截然不同。较少

The present investigator, Hisao TANAKA, has tried to explore the literary representations of the major four regions in the United States from the viewpoint of regionalism-the traditionally demarcated regions, that is, the East, the South, the Midwest, and the West. However, TANAKA has met the same difficulty as did J.M.Cox, who confesses in an essay, "Regionalism : A Diminished Thing," included in the Columbia Literary History of the United States (1988) that "it [the West] is all future and mobility-it is America," and therefore has not duly pursued his plan of study he originally proposed to this project.Still TANAKA attempted to see the four regions on equal terms, keenly conscious of the persistence of the preconceived view that historically the East has had a cultural hegemony over the other regions. Yet, his concern is so greatly with William Faulkner and his region, the South, that the tendency to study it more than the other regions could not be fully avoided. However, he has e … More ndeavored to bring into his consideration the three pivotal critical points of view-gender, class, and race-and also paid due attention to such elements as religion, ethnicity, or age. Also, he sought to refer to the important critical works like The Geopolitical Aesthetic (1995) by F.Jameson and The Location of Culture (1994) by H.K.Bhabha. Thus the researcher has studied the interconnection of composite forces of the identity or image each region has historically and socially internalized, whether consciously or unconsciously, and of the identity or image which has been given to each region, whether it likes it or not, by such external mass media as literature, movies, or photographs. Indeed, regional characteristics are undoubtedly diminishing, but it is still generally true that the East retains, though to a lesser degree than before, Puritan sensibility and reminiscences about its idyllic past ; that, though resurrected from the past ordeal of the Civil Rights Movement and in the process of gradual change, the South is still a homogeneous terrain ; that the Midwest has been proudly buttressing its egalitarian spirit, with heterogeneous mobility ; that the West is always future-oriented, though R.Carver's country is quite different from such scenery. Less