Literature of the American South
William Eggleston, Greenwood, Mississippi, 1973
In the North they are
Cool
Sober
Laborious
Persevering
Independent
jealous of their own liberties,
and just to those of others
Interested
Chicaning
superstitious and hypocritical in their
religion
William Eggleston, Troubled Waters
In the South they are
Fiery
Voluptuary
Indolent
Unsteady
independent
zealous for their own liberties, but trampling on those of
others.
Generous
Candid
without attachment or pretensions to any religion but that of
the heart.
Thomas Jefferson’s famous comments on the American South, made in 1785, identified a distinct
region, and the idea of the South as a “separate country” is the starting-point for this one-semester
course on Southern literature since the late 19th century. While we will explore work by the major
writers of the South and their preoccupation with the region, we will also scrutinize the claim to be
separate, and its expression in literature. While concentrating on Southern prose writing since the
end of the 19th century the course will open up a series of issues including: the development of
separatism; the slave narrative; the plantation novel, the legacy of slavery; the South in
Reconstruction; the myth of the “Old South”; the Southern Renaissance; Southern Gothic; the
relation between the South and the Western; the South as frontier; Southern folklore and tradition;
religion in the South; the South and the New Criticism; the literature of the Civil Rights movement,
and the development of the New South. Inevitably, race and issues to do with race will form a
constant theme in the course. Students will be expected to be familiar with a range of other texts
related to the South and are encouraged to read widely over the summer from a bibliography
available in the next few weeks.
Texts on the course in 2015-16 will include works by Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, William
Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams, Zora Neale Hurston, Bobbie Ann Mason and
Daniel Woodrell. The course will include sessions on prose non-fiction, looking at writings by Booker
T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Mark Twain, Martin Luther King, Richard Wright and Alice Walker.
If you’d like more information on this option, and a draft syllabus, feel free to e-mail me at
[email protected]
Stephen Matterson
Assessment: Students will write 2 essays for this course. The first is due in week 8 of Michaelmas
term and counts for 40% of the total mark. The second is due after the end of the course and counts
for 60% of the mark.