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Today's literary canon* proves that there is and has been a wealth of writers and their stories coming out of the South. H.L. Mencken in his critical essay of the dearth of literary talent to be found in the South “Sahara of the Bozart” has been disproved...

Alas for the South – her books have grown fewer.

She never was much given to literature.

New York Evening Mail

 November 13, 1917

A cursory review of the Canon

Many preceded him, but the talents of Edgar Allen Poe were iconic. Known as the father of the American detective story, author of the macabre, genius of the short story genre, and the first author to earn his living by writing, Poe, additionally, in 1835, became an Assistant Editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, where he espoused his literary views. 

Somewhat lost on the American literary scene, Poe was espoused by the Latin American authors with their “magical realism,” who reestablished his literary worth and brought him back into the American canon.

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Literati of the South** introduces a wider view of literature and the arts. Inspired by the dictum that every person has a story to tell and if a person can talk, he/she can write, Literati-of-the-South proposes to introduce writings of the layman – a commonfolk approach to the pure Southern joy of telling stories.

A Wikipedia essay explores the Southern literary canon in “Southern United States Literature.” Their listing leads with John Smith of Jamestown fame and other early writers. 

These in turn in the mid eighteen forties were followed by the likes of William Gilmore Simms, Poe, himself, Paul Hamilton Hayne, Henry Timrod, John Pendleton Kennedy, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, Henry Timrod, Thomas Nelson Page, Charles W. Chesnutt, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, and Thomas Dixon, Jr. This grouping wrote before and after the Civil War.

Truly, it was the Southern Literary Renaissance that put the South on the map as a reservoir of the great men and women of American Literature.

William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, Caroline Gordon, Allen Tate, Thomas Wolfe, Robert Penn Warren, and Tennessee Williams comprise this grouping of literary giants.

No Southern literary listing is complete without including Margaret Mitchell. Her 1936 novel Gone with the Wind, winner of the 1937 Pulitzer Prize, and its sequel Gone with the Wind, the movie in 1939, gained such a following that the novel “has enjoyed an enduring legacy as the most popular American novel ever written, an incredible achievement for a female writer.”

This stellar success is underwritten by much criticism of Mitchell’s views and portrayals. Though typical of her day and time, there are hurtful descriptions of people, places, and things. Yet, it is its success that cements it a place in the Southern literary canon, arguably or not.

There’s another day and time to explore the Southern literary genre which followed World War II to the present. So, forgive me for obvious names omitted here in the essence of time and space. Good reading when you have a moment to spare of Wikipedia’s stellar exploration of the subject. The above quote is from that article.

Omissions for me are the names of Georgia authors Sidney Lanier and Caroline Miller and Virginian Mary Johnston. I would argue that in time each will be recognized for his or her merit.

From such heaviness, it’s time for some wonderful levity. I am so happy to introduce this week’s writer of “Viewpoint,” Stacy Rowe of the hamlet Townsend in northwest McIntosh County, Georgia.

With a wonderful following and much acclaim, Rowe tells stories of time and place and incredible individuals. In much respect, I would label him a “bard of the people,” our own local Carl Sandburg.

Enjoy this week’s read.

Sudy Bolton Vance, editor

Literati-of-the-South***

*a collection of rules or text that are considered to be authoritative

**persons interested in literature and the arts

***literatureofthesouth.com