California Literature
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California Gold
Introduction

Somewhere between expectation and experience exists a place, or series of places, called California. People pass their lives there with passion or ennui, with hope or despair, each of them perhaps affected by where they are because California has never been allowed to be merely a state in the Union: it is also a state of the mind.[1]

[2] California Poppy: State Flower



California, the place

    Contemporary illusions concerning the Golden State are largely the product of general misunderstanding fostered by mass media that proclaim versions of Southern California's beach-bum and movie-star image to be the entire state's homogeneous reality. California is large, geographically and culturally varied, mullti-ethnic since earliest settlement, and now features mainland America's most heterogeneous populace.[1]

California Quail
[4] State Bird: California Valley Quail



The literary regions of California

One historical and five geo/literary regions have emerged in writing from the Golden State, each of them reflecting regional frontiers with distinct terrains, patterns of settlement, and literary outputs:
Early California (Native, Hispanic, American Incursion, etc)
The Greater Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose plus nearby areas)
Heartland (Agricultural Valleys [Salinas, Imperial, Great Central, etc.])
Wilderness California ( a varied catchall that includes the state's mountains, deserts, and forests)
Southland (South of the Tehachapis)
Fantasy California (A region of the mind)
All these Californias and others combine to produce literature that is varied and rich and controversial: many Californias.[1]




Who is a California Writer?

Jan's Tuolomne river picture.
Tuolomne River
in Tuolomne Meadows
    Defining California literature and identifying California writers needn't be a problem. In the contemporary period, include work written by those raised here, by those living here, by those visiting here and by those fantasizing about living or visiting here -- in about that order -- no matter where people were born (that in itself does not shape their perceptions); where they were reared, however, where their perceptions were molded, is most consequential ( Robert Frost, for instance, was born in San Francisco, but that fact has no impact on his poetry).[1]




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Acknowledgements

Primary Reference and Photographic Sources

[1]
    Many Californias: Literature From the Golden State; University of Nevada Press; Gerald Haslam (ed.); 1992; ISBN:0-87417-182-2
[2]
    California Poppy: State Flower; Wildflowers of Yosemite, Lynn & Jim Wilson and Jeff Nicholas, Sunrise Productions, p. 69, ISBN 0-9617651-0-0
[3]
    California Golden Trout; Outdoor California, Nov-Dec 1997 page 18, illustration by Joseph R. Tomelleri
[4]
    Icons of dots/balls, California Flag, small fish, small grizzley and small bear are from http://www.iconbazaar.com/dots/
[5]
    California State Insect: Dog Face Butterfly (male); The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects & Spiders; published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; ISBN: 0-394-50763-0
[6]
    Al Jolson "California Here I Come"; From: http://wso.williams.edu/~mhacker/music.html




Date Last Modified: Saturday, 13-Mar-1999 11:23:59 PST

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