Inventing Southern Literature.

Abstract

I take...an outward route, arguing that Agrarian project was and must be seen as willed campaign on part of one elite to establish and control 'the South' in period of intense cultural maneuvering. The principal organizers of I'll Take My Stand knew full well there were other 'Souths' than one they touted; they deliberately presented fabricated as one and only real thing. In Inventing Southern Literature Michael Kreyling casts penetrating ray upon traditional canon of southern literature and questions modes by which it was created. He finds that it was, indeed, an invention rather than creation. In 1930s foundations were laid by Fugitive-Agrarian group, band of poet-critics that wished not only to design but also to control southern cultural entity in conservative political context. From their heyday to present, Kreyling investigates historical conditions under which literary and cultural critics have invented the South and how they have chosen its representations. Through his study of these choices, Kreyling argues that interested groups have shaped meanings that preserve a South as the South. As Fugitive-Agrarians molded region according to their definition in I'll Take My Stand, they professed to have developed critical method that disavowed any cultural or political intent or content, claim that Kreyling disproves. He shows that their torch was taken by Richard Weaver on Right and Louis D. Rubin, Jr., on Center-Left and that both critics tried to preserve Fugitive-Agrarian credo despite severe stresses imposed during era of desegregation. As southern literary paradigm has been attacked and defended, certain issues have remained in forefront. Kreyling takes on three: reconciling imperatives of race with traditional definitions of South; testing ways white women writers of have negotiated space within or outside paradigm; and analyzing critics' use and abuse of William Faulkner (the major figure of southern literature) as they have relied on his achievement to anchor total project called Southern Literature. Michael Kreyling, professor of English at Vanderbilt University, is author of several books, including Eudora Welty's Achievement of Order and Author and Agent: Eudora Welty and Diarmuid Russell.