The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American South

Featuring essays written by an international team of experts, this Companion maps the dynamic literary landscape of the American South.

Sharon Monteith (Edited by)

9781107036789, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 August 2013

262 pages
23.9 x 15.5 x 2 cm, 0.48 kg

'This collection has strengths in its essays treating the chronological divisions of this field, but it also considers newly developed approaches, including queer and transnational ones … A helpful bibliographical guide to the various divisions is independent of the essays' notes … Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.' T. Bonner, Jr, Choice

This Companion maps the dynamic literary landscape of the American South. From pre- and post-Civil War literature to modernist and civil rights fictions and writing by immigrants in the 'global' South of the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries, these newly commissioned essays from leading scholars explore the region's established and emergent literary traditions. Touching on poetry and song, drama and screenwriting, key figures such as William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, and iconic texts such as Gone with the Wind, chapters investigate how issues of class, poverty, sexuality and regional identity have textured Southern writing across generations. The volume's rich contextual approach highlights patterns and connections between writers while offering insight into the development of Southern literary criticism, making this Companion a valuable guide for students and teachers of American literature, American studies and the history of storytelling in America.

Introduction: mapping the figurative South Sharon Monteith
1. Region, genre, and the nineteenth-century South Kathryn B. McKee
2. Slave narratives and neo-slave narratives Judie Newman
3. Literature and the Civil War Will Kaufman
4. Literature and Reconstruction Scott Romine
5. Southern verse in poetry and song Ernest Suarez
6. Southern modernists and modernity David A. Davis
7. Poverty and progress Sarah Robertson
8. The Southern renaissance and the Faulknerian South John T. Matthews
9. Southern women writers and their influence Pearl McHaney
10. Hollywood dreaming: Southern writers and the movies Sarah Gleeson-White
11. Civil rights fiction Sharon Monteith
12. Southern drama Gary Richards
13. Queering the South Michael Bibler
14. Immigrant writers: transnational stories of a 'worlded' South Nahem Yousaf.

Subject Areas: Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA]