652 American Literature
Literature is vast, but that does not mean nothing can be learned from studying a small body of it. Perhaps a better understanding of Regionalism might even help solve the problem of just what constitutes a national literature.
Carafiol and Spengemann are right to call for a reassessment of what we mean when we speak of our own national literature, but such a reassessment does take time. Meanwhile, the editors of the CLHUS are also right to give us a literary history of the United States that can replace the forty-year-old study by Spiller at al.; and there is much to be said for their notion that the diversity of voices in America’s literature should be reflected in any history of it. What “New Orthodoxists” and “Outsiders” such as Carafiol and Spengemann need to bear in mind is an axiom of intellectual history well expressed by Gordon S. Wood in his article about the debate over the interpretation of the Constitution. “History, experience, custom,” says Wood, “are authentic conservative barriers controlling our behavior…If anyone in our intellectual struggles violates too radically the accepted or inherited meanings of the culture, his ability to persuade others is lost.”
Go ahead then, Outsiders, and reconceive what we mean by literature and culture. While you do that, let the New Orthodoxy write as many literary histories as it pleases. Just remember that you may all find it difficult to persuade more than fifty million Westerners if your reconceptions and new histories say that the region we inhabit does not exist. When you call us non-existent, partners, smile!
“The Fundamentalists and the Constitution,” New York Review of Books, 18 Fedb. 1988, p. 40