Southern Writers and Their Worlds - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807122742 ISBN 13: 9780807122747

Publisher: LSU Press, 1998

Synopsis

In this brilliant collection, five historians and literary critics explore the many ways that southern writers influence and are influenced by their region. Christopher Morris examines the relationship between economic development and the humor of such “Old Southwestern” writers as Augustus B. Longstreet and Johnson Jones Hooper, while Susan A. Eacker explains how South Carolina author Louisa McCord came to defend slavery. Anne Goodwyn Jones offers a penetrating deconstruction of gender in the southern literary renaissance, Charles Joyner reassesses William Styron’s controversial decision to write The Confessions of Nat Turner in the first person, and Bertram Wyatt-Brown reveals the connection between depression and literary creativity. Presenting interdisciplinary topics within a broad chronological range, this remarkable work will be of interest to all students of southern literature and history.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

These five essays from the Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures explore the many ways Southern writers have shaped and been shaped by their region. Susan A. Eacker explains how South Carolinian essayist and poet Louisa McCord came to believe slavery was necessary and good within a world that would forever be inhabited by violent men and physically (but not intellectually) defenseless women. Christopher Morris examines the relationship between the economic development in the South and the humor of writers such as Augustus B. Longstreet and Johnson Jones Hooper. Bertram Wyatt-Brown discusses the connection between depression and literary creativity. This relationship has had both glorious and tragic consequences for Southern letters - glorious for the many outstanding achievements by Southern writers, tragic for the literature that might have been but for the prolonged depression, drunkenness, and early death met by so many of them. Anne Goodwyn Jones's contribution is a penetrating deconstruction of gender in the Southern literary renaissance, while Charles Joyner offers an eloquent look at Nat Turner's insurrection of 1831 and William Styron's 1967 novel about the event, providing a much-needed reassessment of Styron's controversial decision to write The Confessions of Nat Turner in the first person.

About the Author:

Christopher Morris is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington and author of Becoming Southern: The Evolution of a Way of Life, Warren County and Vicksburg, Mississippi, 1770–1860.

Steven G. Reinhardt, author of Justice in the Sarladais, 1770–1790, is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington.

About this edition

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0807122742
• ISBN 13: 9780807122747
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176
• Editor: Morris Christopher, Eacker Susan A.