Southern Literature

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a look at the literature that has emanated from the Southern states of the USA. According to the paper, the genre of Southern literature is divided into Old South and New South. The paper goes on to discuss the differences between the two.

From the Paper:

"The South would develop as it did because of the nature of the land, the climate, the sorts of agricultural products that could be grown, and the need for a certain level of labor that was answered by the slave system. Much of America was shaped by its sense of the frontier, and in the South the frontier played an important role. More properly, it was the idea of the frontier that shaped American society. American history involves a mixture of histories, cultures, and national backgrounds brought together in what was truly the New World when it was discovered by European settlers. At the time, there were several Indian tribes in North America and the larger civilization of the Aztecs in South America. The settlers from Europe brought their culture with them, and they only broke away from that culture slowly over a period of time as they created something new. With the advent of slavery in the plantation economy of the South, blacks from Africa were brought to the Americas and introduced elements of their culture. These different forces mixed and interacted over time to become the underpinnings of American history and what would become a distinctive American culture."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cash, W.J. The Mind of the South. New York: Random House, 1991.
• Gautreaux, Tim. The Clearing. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
• Holman, C. Hugh and Louis D. Rubin Jr. Southern Literary Study: Problems and Possibilities. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
• Humphries, Jefferson and John Lowe. The Future of Southern Letters. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Kenan, Randall. Let the Dead Bury Their Dead. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.

More papers on Southern Literature:

• Analytical Essay # 47090 : "Southern Literature"
• Analytical Essay # 7362 : "Women in Southern Contemporary Literature"
• Essay # 51811 : "Lynching in Literature"

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