文档介绍：Southern Literature
I. The South
II. Southern Renaissance
III. The “Lost Cause” Years
IV. Major Themes
V. Characteristics
VI. Major Writers
I. The South
The area known as the South has been described as stretching from the Gulf Coast states through Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas to Virginia and Maryland.
II. Southern Renaissance
the reinvigoration of American Southern literature that began in the 1920s and 1930s
III. The “Lost Cause” Years
Prior to this renaissance, Southern writers tended to focus on
historical romances about the “Lost Cause” of the South’s Civil War defeat
the “idyllic culture” that existed before the war (known as the Antebellum South)
The South
lost the Civil War
suffered a harsh occupation (Reconstruction)
These writers idealized
the defeated South
its lost culture
In 1884, Mark Twain published
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
arguably the most influential southern novel of the 19th century
IV. Major Features
twisted
pessimistic
violent
distorted
gothic
V. focuses
the importance of family
sense munity
importance of religion
importance of time and place
exploration of the past
sense of human limitation (moral dilemma)
use of southern voice and dialect
VI. Southern Myths – guilt, failure, poverty
heritage
virtue
aristocracy
cause
supremacy
of womanhood
VII. Three major themes
1) burden of history
2) conservative culture
3) racial issues