Western (genre)

The Western is an American genre in literature and film. Westerns are art works – films, literature, sculpture, television and radio shows, and paintings – devoted to telling stories set in the American West, often portraying it in a romanticized light.

Origins of the "Western idea"

The idealized version of the "Wild West" can be traced at least as far back as Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows which began in 1883. In literature, Owen Wister's The Virginian, published in 1902, was an American start (though not the first Western published in the United States); but the German writer Karl May was writing Wild West stories as early as 1876. His books were a major influence on the founder of Universal Pictures, the German immigrant Carl Laemmle; and May himself traced ideas at least to the American writer James Fenimore Cooper, who wrote Last of the Mohicans in 1826.

Related Topics:
Buffalo Bill - 1883 - Owen Wister - The Virginian - 1902 - German - Karl May - 1876 - Universal Pictures - Carl Laemmle - James Fenimore Cooper - Last of the Mohicans - 1826

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Thus, the "western idea" has a long history. The western was a distinct literary genre before the rise of motion pictures; other important writers were Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour and Elmore Leonard.

Related Topics:
Literary genre - Zane Grey - Louis L'Amour - Elmore Leonard

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It has been said that there are four principal elements which contributed to the form of the western genre:

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• A structure drawn from 19th century melodramatic literature, involving a virtuous hero and a wicked villain who menaces a virginal heroine.
• An action story, composed of violence, chases and crimes appropriate to a place like the American West in the 19th century.
• The introduction of the history of the migration westwards and the opening of the frontier signalled in such films as The Covered Wagon (1924) and The Iron Horse(1924).
• The revenge structure, which was present by the time of Billy The Kid in 1930.

These have been claimed for the 'premise' from which westerns were developed and from which all subsequent westerns have emerged.

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