Nineteenth-Century Southern Literature - Paperback

by J. V. Ridgely (Author)

Few inhabitants of the South in 1800 thought of it as a "region" or of themselves as "southerners." In time, the need to defend the entire southern way of life became obsessive for many writers, too often precluding efforts at originality in form or style. Especially after the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, southern identity and southern nationalism emerged as the grand themes, and literature became subservient to regional interests. The devastation of the Civil War and the collapse of the Co

Author Biography

J.V. Ridgely is professor of English at Columbia University and the author of books on William Gilmore Simms and John Pendleton Kennedy.