The Mere Region
from the The Seventeenth Southern Writers Symposium
Robert Jackson, University of Virginia
Robert Jackson, University of Virginia
Essay Sections:
Introduction |
Eliot's Homogeneity | Defining
Region | "The Ordinary Business
of Living" | Southern Writers Symposium
"The Ordinary Business of Living":
For lack of time, I will cite just one example to illustrate the region's cultural
potential in America, expressing its creative innovation. The passage is taken from
a foundational text in southern literature: the Bible. Acts 13: 46-50 (from the
ubiquitously southern King James Version, of course):
46Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word
of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge
yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
47For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles,
that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.
48And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and
as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
49And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region.
50But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city,
and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts.
The presence here of "free-thinking Jews" who threaten the homogeneity of the elite culture
is a nice bonus, but I want to point to the way that the apostles simultaneously resist one
authority ("the chief men of the city") and assert another (God's and by extension their own).
Their evangelism is influenced by these powers but intuitively expresses itself in a space that
is cultural, not legal or economic, ensuring a considerable payoff for everyone in that space and,
to the book's readers, beyond: "And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region."
The relative sophistication of this regional model - balancing so many contradictions and competing forces while articulating its individual voice gracefully - has the side effect of making T. S. Eliot seem all the more hapless. But even the apostate Missourian seems to have sensed the need to leave other possibilities open for the region. Revising but not substantively altering his earlier views in the 1940 essay "Notes towards the Definition of Culture," Eliot concludes with the rare admission that he might not know everything about his subject. But he still leans on like-mindedness and invokes the imperial "we":
The relative sophistication of this regional model - balancing so many contradictions and competing forces while articulating its individual voice gracefully - has the side effect of making T. S. Eliot seem all the more hapless. But even the apostate Missourian seems to have sensed the need to leave other possibilities open for the region. Revising but not substantively altering his earlier views in the 1940 essay "Notes towards the Definition of Culture," Eliot concludes with the rare admission that he might not know everything about his subject. But he still leans on like-mindedness and invokes the imperial "we":
It was necessary to remind ourselves of those considerable areas of the globe, in which the
problem takes a different form from ours: of those areas particularly, in which two or more distinct
cultures are so inextricably involved with each other, in propinquity and in the ordinary business
of living, that "regionalism," as we conceive it in Britain, would be a mockery. For such areas it
is probable that a very different type of political philosophy should inspire political action,
from that in terms of which we are accustomed to think and act in this part of the world.
Eliot's description of "two or more distinct cultures… inextricably involved with each other...
in the ordinary business of living," strikes me as an entirely adequate summary of the American
South, both during slavery and segregation and in today's postmodern, multicultural South. The
"different type of… philosophy" Eliot hints at but does not attempt to define comes about as close
as he ever did to imagining any culture not based on elitist, exclusionary principles. Seeking
both to contribute to a more inclusive public space for cultural discourse, and to contemplate how
this model might address southern literature — the most important regional literature produced in
twentieth-century America — I have tried here to flesh out one possible model of region in America,
one possible conception of the region Eliot did not venture to imagine.
Probably the main motivation for Eliot's comparatively humble turn of thought in 1940 was the alarming emergence of Fascism during the previous decade. But perhaps there is something else in his talk of several cultures "inextricably involved with each other," a memory of the complex regional culture he knew so innocently in his American youth, and a desire to see the promise of that culture fulfilled. In any case, my own intentions in revisiting the mere region, and in giving Eliot as much benefit of the doubt as possible in this area, are not entirely unselfish. For I, too, am a Missourian.
Probably the main motivation for Eliot's comparatively humble turn of thought in 1940 was the alarming emergence of Fascism during the previous decade. But perhaps there is something else in his talk of several cultures "inextricably involved with each other," a memory of the complex regional culture he knew so innocently in his American youth, and a desire to see the promise of that culture fulfilled. In any case, my own intentions in revisiting the mere region, and in giving Eliot as much benefit of the doubt as possible in this area, are not entirely unselfish. For I, too, am a Missourian.
Essay Sections:
Introduction |
Eliot's Homogeneity | Defining
Region | "The Ordinary Business
of Living" | Southern Writers Symposium
