Regionalism

Regionalism is basically the same thing as Realism. The only difference between Regionalism and Realism is that Regionalism focuses on a specific region like a town.

Regionalism is:

"A literary subgenre that emphasizes the setting, history, speech, dialect, and customs of a particular geographical locale or area, not only for local color, but also for development of universal themes through the use of the local and particular. Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Ellen Glasgow, and Robert Penn Warren are notable examples of American writers who used regionalism" (Werlock).

"Some American writers are associated with certain regions of the country because their work provides detailed and dramatic portraits that draw on characteristic speech and manners. Sherwood Anderson, for example, is associated with the Midwest, which inspired some of his greatest fiction, especially Winesburg, Ohio (1919). Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, and Willa Cather were also associated with the Midwest—small-town, urban, and farming settings, respectively.

To Anderson, the more specific a writer was about the setting of his story, the more believable he could make his characters; for him, the particular led to the universal. William Faulkner—who writes about Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, in most of his novels and stories—was fond of quoting Anderson's advice and chose to create fiction out of his "little postage stamp of native soil." Like Faulkner, many writers have explored particular locales within regions: John Steinbeck's Salinas Valley, California; Thomas Wolfe's Altamont (the fictional name for his native Asheville, North Carolina); John O'Hara's Gibbsville (based on Pottsville, Pennsylvania); Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's Cross Creek, Florida" (Anderson).

A good example of Regionalism is a Western. Westerns focus on a specific region, the west, and goes into a lot of detail about the west.

More examples, including westerns, are as followed:

"Writers who write about real or made-up locales make use of the history or ideas associated with particular regions. Cather's Scandinavian immigrants, for example, suggest the difficult yet durable quality of American pioneers. The American West embodies the American myth of the self-made man, the loner, and the adventurer heading out for new territory and exploring the frontier. The novels of Owen Wister and Zane Grey made the cowboy a staple of the American mythos. The South, with its legacy of the Civil War that left it the only part of the United States to have been invaded and to have lost a war, has inspired the work of Faulkner as well as later writers such as Robert Penn Warren, Carson McCullers and Eudora Welty. New England, with its importance to the nation's history and its developing character, has inspired writers such as E. A. Robinson, Robert Frost, Eugene O'Neill, and George Santayana. Although the term regionalist is sometimes used to describe an author whose work has limited appeal, many of the best American writers write about specific communities that have an intrinsic interest for them—so much so that author and place cannot be conceived of apart. In this sense, the term regionalist is descriptive and not limiting" (Anderson).

Works Cited

Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds."regionalism." Encyclopedia of American Literature: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, vol. 3, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EAmL1330&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 8, 2011).

Werlock, Abby H. P. "regionalism." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= Gamshrtsty0581&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 8, 2011).