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Book Reviews -- Kentucky Bluegrass Country by R. Gerald Alvey

1994; Wiley; Volume: 17; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

1542-734X

William Grant,

American Political and Social Dynamics

Kentucky Bluegrass Country. R. Gerald Alvey. Jackson, Miss. and London: UP of Mississippi, 1992. $37.50 cloth $16.95 paper.The famous Kentucky bluegrass country--land of aristocratic horse breeders and their jet-set visitors--is hardly the place an unimaginative folklorist would look to practice his calling. The major achievement of Alvey's work is to demonstrate that these rural patricians are as Infused with the informally transmitted local customs we characterize as lore as their more humble employees and neighbors. Folklore in the bluegrass counties is a seamless web binding all elements of the community into regional cultural patterns distinguished by the richness of a living tradition deeply rooted in the past. In Alvey's own words, social and economic status do not necessarily correlate with cultural orientation; and all people have folklore, M, matter their or economic class-including bluegrass gentry. Though other groups--dare one call them the lower classes?--are included in this survey of bluegrass folk culture, it is the and their way of life that sets the tone; their culture is the central focus of the work.This bias toward the gentry is most apparent in the middle section of the book which surveys architectural features on the rural landscape and in the local towns, especially Lexington. A variety of historic house and building types are briefly described, the most extensive treatment is reserved for the gentleman farm of the bluegrass. By contrast, the restored Shaker village at Pleasant Hill, a genuine national treasure of Shaker architecture and material culture, gets only passing attention. One can only infer from this imbalance that the Shakers, though a notable presence in the history of the bluegrass country, are regarded by Alvey as outside the traditional bluegrass culture with which he is concerned. They may have been folk, not bluegrass folk.Beginning with a survey of the historical forces that shaped the bluegrass and its unique culture, Alvey remains throughout his work as much a cultural historian of the region as a folklorist. Far more of the information about cultural patterns is derived from research in secondary sources than from field-work, though the latter method is sometimes used to verify the living presence of traditions or practices prevalent in an earlier time. Some traditions, like the code duello, bearbaiting and ganderpulling, which have vanished from contemporary life, are considered by Alvey as essential to an understanding of the modern bluegrass temperament in which admiration of honor and a tendency to violence seems to lurk just under the surface. Cockfighting, one of these blood sports which still is practiced in the region, has degenerated from a sport of the gentry to a pastime for working-class men, reflects the local taste for hot blood. It is typical of Alvey's approach that his final comment on this cruel sport describes it only as but one of the outdoor folk sports participated in by many bluegrass working-class males, a surprising number of whom follow a traditional outdoor way of life. …