Truthful pictures : slavery ordained by God in the domestic sentimental novel of the nineteenth-century South / Diane N. Capitani.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Capitani, Diane N., 1943-

Contributor:

Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

American fiction.

Intellectual life.

Slavery and the church.

History.

Slavery.

Justification (Christian theology).

Southern States.

Slavery--Southern States--Justification.

American fiction--Women authors--History and criticism.

American fiction--Women authors.

Slavery--Southern States--History--19th century.

Slavery and the church--United States--History--19th century.

Fiction--Authorship--Psychological aspects.

Fiction.

Southern States--Intellectual life--19th century.

Southern States--In literature.

Slavery in literature.

United States.

Physical Description:

147 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, MD : Lexington Books, [2009]

Summary:

Truthful Pictures examines novels and sermons written in the antebellum South, in particular those written after the 1851 publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It begins with a historical overview of the function of women writers in American literature in order to help locate sentimental fiction within its historical context by analyzing the works of Southern female authors such as Caroline Hentz and Mary H. Eastman. Though they followed in Harriet Beecher Stowe's footsteps, authors like Hentz and Eastman used their voices in conjunction with Christian ideology to support slavery. The text then explores how Holy Scripture was perverted in Southern sermons by pulpit leaders such as Thorton Stringfellow and Alexander McCaine in order to allow the continued enslavement of one group by another, using religion to defend white partriarchy as the normal human way of life. By examining antebellum sermons and writings and their influence on sentimental novels, Truthful Pictures shows how religious texts reinforced political ideologies in the wake of increasing racial tensions between the North and the South.

Contents:

The function of women writers in American history

The cult of true womanhood and the southern domestic novel

The nineteenth-century southern woman and the domestic novel

Slavery defended from Scripture: influences in the southern novel

Southern women writers: refuting the "Northern hussy" and defending slavery from Scriptures

Male voices in southern domestic fiction: politics as usual

Enlightening blighted Africa

Conclusion: a monstrous system.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 141-144) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9780739112328

0739112325

9780739133880

0739133888

OCLC:

259970303