A History of the Literature of the U.S. South provides scholars with a dynamic and heterogeneous examination of southern writing from John Smith to Natasha Trethewey. Eschewing a master narrative limited to predictable authors and titles, the anthology adopts a variegated approach that emphasizes the cultural and political tensions crucial to the making of this regional literature. Certain chapters focus on major white writers (e.g., Thomas Jefferson, William Faulkner, the Agrarians, Cormac McCarthy), but a substantial portion of the work foregrounds the achievements of African American writers like Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, and Sarah Wright to address the multiracial and transnational dimensions of this literary formation. Theoretically informed and historically aware, the volume's contributors collectively demonstrate how southern literature constitutes an aesthetic, cultural and political field that richly repays examination from a variety of critical perspectives.

In The American South, William J. Cooper, Jr. and Thomas E. Terrill demonstrate their belief that it is impossible to divorce the history of the south from the history of the United States. Each volume includes a substantial biographical essay—completely updated for this edition—which provides the reader with a guide to literature on the history of the South. Coverage now includes the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, up-to-date analysis of the persistent racial divisions in the region, and the South's unanticipated role in the 2008 presidential primaries.

Drawing on diverse theories and methods, this collective volume emphasizes the multi-ethnic and transnational aspects of southern literature over a four hundred-year period.

The Oxford Handbook of the Literature of the U.S. South brings together contemporary views of the literature of the region in a series of chapters employing critical tools not traditionally used in approaching Southern literature. It assumes ideas of the South--global, multicultural, plural: more Souths than South--that would not have been embraced two or three decades ago, and it similarly expands the idea of literature itself. Representative of the current range of activity in the field of Southern literary studies, it challenges earlier views of antebellum Southern literature, as well as, in its discussions of twentieth-century writing, questions the assumption that the Southern Renaissance of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s was the supreme epoch of Southern expression, that writing to which all that had come before had led and by which all that came afterward was judged. As well as canonical Southern writers, it examines Native American literature, Latina/o literature, Asian American as well as African American literatures, Caribbean studies, sexuality studies, the relationship of literature to film, and a number of other topics which are relatively new to the field.

In this major reconsideration of a regional consciousness, Richard Gray explores how generations of southerners have been engaged in "writing the South", in reinventing their place even as they describe it. "Humane and learned, informative and analytical, WRITING THE SOUTH is a most impressive addition to cultural inquiry".--THE LISTENER. 12 photos.

Excerpt from The Literature of the South It is to be hoped that the following studies will emphasize this close contact of letters with the life of the South. The aim has been throughout, however, to escape the' stigma of sectionalism. The South, per se, retains its individuality - but its significance, as part of the nation, should have a wider under standing. For it will be found that the South has contributed to American literature, both by example and by accomplishment; that it has been original, even though much of its writing is imitative. The literature of the South is the literature of a people, and those people - after an evolution from the aristo crat to the democrat, taken in a wider sense - are themselves Americans as well as Southerners. The bibliographies contained in the Appendix will bespeak my indebtedness to the many sources of an historical and social nature. It is a pleasure here to express my deep appreciation of the unfailing courtesy given to me by the authorities of Columbia University Library, who have placed at my disposal every facility; in especial, I would thank Mr. Frederic W. Erb, whose personal interest and watchfulness have done much to enrich my bibliographies. To the St. Agnes Branch of the New York Public Library I also wish to extend my grateful acknowledgment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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.