My blood's country: studies in southwestern literature

Abstract

Southwestern literature is a division of American literature and culture that has been somewhat neglected in recent years. Though there are signs that it is currently the center of renewed interest, the react ion during the 1940s and '50s against regionalism and sectionalism (a reaction which was cyclically foredoomed by the peak of interest in those topics reached during the 1920s and '30s) sharply curtailed the study of Western and Southwestern literature. It is the purpose of the present collection of essays to demonstrate that the body of writings produced over the years by Southwestern authors is worthy of serious critical attention. Chronologically the subjects of these essays go back as far as the narrative of Cabeza de Vaca, written in the sixteenth century. Most of the writers examined here, however, are modern, and the contention that twentieth-century Southwestern literature is a significant branch of American literature generally is supported by a consideration of the works of Harvey Fergusson, Edwin Corle, Paul Horgan, Edward Abbey, Frank Waters, William A. Owens, Larry McMurtry, Larry L. King and various recent comic novelists. Though changing conditions now demand a changed outlook by the area's writers--specifically they demand a more critical and searching scrutiny of the region's history and landscape than most writers have been willing to exercise--the achievement to date by Southwestern authors should not be diminished by their problematical future. That achievement, it is hoped, will not be overlooked by a new generation of critics and scholars, for the arid and semi-arid lands from East Texas to southern California have stimulated a surprisingly extensive literature that deserves more critical reading and study than it has so far received.