Inventing southern literature / Michael Kreyling.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kreyling, Michael, 1948-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--Southern States--History and criticism--Theory, etc.

American literature.

Criticism.

History.

Southern States.

American literature--Southern States--History and criticism.

Criticism--Southern States--History--20th century.

Southern States--Intellectual life.

Intellectual life.

Southern States--In literature.

Group identity in literature.

Regionalism in literature.

Physical Description:

xviii, 200 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [1998]

Summary:

In Inventing Southern Literature Michael Kreyling casts a penetratating ray upon the traditional canon of southern literature and questions the modes by which it was created. He finds that it was, indeed, an invention rather than a creation.

In the 1930s the foundations were laid by the Fugitive-Agrarian group, a band of poet-critics that wished not only to design but also to control the southern cultural entity in a conservative political context. From their heyday to the present, Kreyling investigates the historical conditions under which literary and cultural critics have invented "the South" and how they have chosen its representations. Through his study of these choices, Kreyling argues that interested groups have shaped meanings that preserve "a South" as "the South".

As the Fugitive-Agrarians molded the region according to their definition in I'll Take My Stand. they professed to have developed a critical method that disavowed any cultural or political intent or content, a claim that Kreyling disproves. He shows that their torch was taken by Richard Weaver on the Right and Louis D. Rubin, Jr., on the Center-Left and that both critics tried to preserve the Fugitive-Agrarian credo despite the severe stresses imposed during the era of desegregation.

As the southern literary paradigm has been attacked and defended, certain issues have remained in the forefront. Kreyling takes on three:

Contents:

505 0 The South of the agrarians

Richard Weaver and the outline of Southern literary history

Race, literature, and history in the work of Louis D. Rubin, Jr.

Southern literature anthologies and the invention of the South

African-American writers and Southern literary history

Southern women writers and the Quentin theory

Southern writing under the influence of William Faulkner

Parody and postsouthernness

The invention of the South and the culture war.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [183]-193) and index.

ISBN:

1578060443

1578060451

OCLC:

37721512