The Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States (known as the American Old West or Wild West), but also in Western Canada, Mexico (The Wild Bunch, Vera Cruz), Alaska (The Far Country, North to Alaska) and even Australia (Quigley Down Under, The Proposition). Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 but most are set between the end of the American Civil War and the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, though there are several "late Westerns" (e.g., The Wild Bunch and 100 Rifles) set as late as the Mexican Revolution in 1913. There are also a number of films about Western-type characters in contemporary settings where they don't fit in, such as Junior Bonner set in the 1970s, and Down in the Valley and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada in the 21st Century.
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The Official Blog of the Western Literature Association
The Official Blog of the Western Literature Association. About the WLA Blog. Copyright Statement ... by the Western Literature Association Blog during our " ...westlit.wordpress.com/Westerns for Today
Westerns for Today. A blog for discussing anything and everything related to ... A New Western Blog. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Rob...westernsfortoday.blogspot.com/Dac Crossley's Western Blog
South Texas fiction; Texas Rangers and bandits on the border in 1915 ... Dac Crossley's Western Blog. South Texas fiction. About. Archives. April 2009. March 2009 ...daccrossley.typepad.com/Westerns — Blogs, Pictures, and more on WordPress
... of government in the Cold War western ... 2 weeks ago: I am still working on my modern day western mystery. ... Appaloosa, Robert B. Parker, western ...en.wordpress.com/tag/westerns/Moogies World: Blog Western Archives
Blog Western - Part V. Goodness, just where have I been the last few days? ... Blog Western - Chapter 3 is up! This just keeps getting better and better. ...www.moogiesworld.com/archives/blog_western/
The Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States (known as the American Old West or Wild West), but also in Western Canada, Mexico (The Wild Bunch, Vera Cruz), Alaska (The Far Country, North to Alaska) and even Australia (Quigley Down Under, The Proposition). Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 but most are set between the end of the American Civil War and the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, though there are several "late Westerns" (e.g., The Wild Bunch and 100 Rifles) set as late as the Mexican Revolution in 1913. There are also a number of films about Western-type characters in contemporary settings where they don't fit in, such as Junior Bonner set in the 1970s, and Down in the Valley and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada in the 21st Century.
Westerns often portray how primitive and obsolete ways of life confronted modern technological or social changes. This may be depicted by showing conflict between natives and settlers or U.S. Cavalry, or by showing ranchers being threatened by the onset of the Industrial Revolution. American Westerns of the 1940s and 1950s emphasise the values of honor and sacrifice. Westerns from the 1960s and 1970s often have more pessimistic view, glorifying a rebellious anti-hero and highlighting the cynicism, brutality and inequality of the American West.
Themes
The Western genre, particularly in films, often portrays the conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature in the name of civilization or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original inhabitants of the frontier. The Western depicts a society organised around codes of honor, rather than the law, in which persons have no social order larger than their immediate peers, family, or perhaps themselves alone. The popular perception of the Western is a story that centres on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter.
In some ways, such protagonists could be considered the literary descendants of the knight errant which stood at the center of an earlier extensive genre. Like the cowboy or gunfighter of the Western, the knight errant of the earlier European tales and poetry was wandering from place to place on his horse, fighting villains of various kinds and bound to no fixed social structures but only to his own innate code of honour. And like knights errant, the heroes of Westerns frequently rescue damsels in distress.
