Southern Renaissance

Southern Renaissance Characteristics

What set the Southern Renaissance apart from previous southern literature was its departure from the common themes in southern literature and examination of new ones.

Post-Civil War southern literature had often invoked the ideas of the "Lost Cause" with a romantic view of the antebellum south. It often portrayed an idyllic southern culture before the war, while ignoring the social evils of slavery and the inequality of the plantation system.

A good example of this is Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, published in 1936 but indicative of the earlier style. The writings of the Southern Renaissance contrasted with this presentation of the pre-Civil War south.

The Southern Renaissance's writers adopted a new critical spirit, critiquing the past and present of southern society in ways few previous authors had. In many ways, the Southern Renaissance writers were building off the earlier legacy of writers such as Mark Twain and some African American writers like Charles W. Chestnutt, bringing this critical spirit into mainstream southern literature.

There are three main themes that can be seen as part of the Southern Renaissance's characteristics.

Burden of History

While previous writers had glorified the antebellum south, these new writers dealt with the difficulty of engaging with the region's history more directly. The region has been a bastion of racism and slavery, was defeated in the Civil War, and underwent the restructuring of the old order during Reconstruction.

More recently, the country had participated in World War One and the country had urbanized. Much of the southern population faced poverty, and racial segregation remained a key feature of southern life. Examining the effects of this past and the divisions of race and class was one of the key characteristics of Southern Renaissance works.

Fig. 1 - Photograph of the children of African American sharecroppers in the south

Identity and Conservative Culture

Another Southern Renaissance characteristic was the way authors engaged with identity. The South was still dominated by a largely conservative culture that valued the family, religion, and community over the individual. Southern Renaissance writers engaged with how individuals defined themselves in this culture.

Race

Connected to the first two Southern Renaissance characteristics, authors in this period also engaged with race in ways previous ones had not. The region had a complicated legacy of slavery and racism, but also a culture that had been heavily influenced by its large African American population. Southern Renaissance writers engaged with this legacy in more objective ways, being farther removed from slavery and the Civil War than previous writers.

Use of New Literary Techniques

While those three main themes influenced the Southern Renaissance's characteristics, the writers of the era also introduced new techniques to their writings. Among these were:

• Stream of consciousness as a storytelling mechanism
• Self-consciousness and experimentation
• Modernist thinking and forms
• Complex narrative forms and techniques, such as non-linear narratives and use of dialects to help convey setting and meaning

Southern Renaissance First Wave

The Southern Renaissance's First Wave is considered to have taken place in the 1920s, 30s, and early 1940s. It was largely a reaction to criticisms of the south's culture.

In 1917, H. L. Mencken, a cultural critic, likened southern culture to the Sahara Desert. The writers of the Southern Renaissance reacted by creating a library of works that could be considered significant and challenged this view of a non-cultured south incapable of producing great works of literature.

This First Wave of the Southern Renaissance largely dealt with the troubled past of the south, especially with racism and the legacy of slavery. It also tried to define the south as a unique cultural place rather than simply a region of the United States, and often emphasized and incorporated oral tradition, dialect, and other traditions. Southern Gothic novels emerged as a subgenre of southern literature as part of the Southern Renaissance's first wave.

Fig. 2 - White sharecroppers in the south

Southern Renaissance Second Wave

The Second Wave of the Southern Renaissance emerged under the influence of the Agrarians. They were a group of writers teaching at Vanderbilt University who celebrated the agrarian tradition of the south and contrasted it to the urbanization of the north.

The Southern Renaissance's Second Wave occurred from approximately 1945 to 1965 and attempted to build on this message of value in the traditions of the south. The writers did this while the south saw new economic development, urbanization, and changes in the post-World War Two and early Cold War period.

Notable Southern Renaissance Writers

William Faulkner is usually seen as the most significant Southern Renaissance writer. His complicated and vivid image of the south's past is at once a critique and celebration of the region's culture and historic legacies.

Fig. 3 - Photo of William Faulkner, one of the most important Southern Renaissance writers

See some of the most important Southern Renaissance writers, their works, and the themes they examined in the table below.