ENGL 225-01&02, Southern Literature, Fall 2012

Abstract

When Shreve McCannon, a northerner, asks Quentin Compson, the displaced Mississippian in Faulkner‟s Absalom, Absalom!, to “tell [him] about the South,” he is articulating the enduring desire (and dilemma) of all Southern writers. How does one define the South, after all? Is it a region? A culture? A historical construct? And perhaps, more to the point, who or what is a Southerner? The literature that we‟ll read this semester will offer no easy answers, but it will reveal an enduring set of concerns. Questions of identity are at the heart of Southern writing – regional and national identities of course, but also individual identities. A heightened awareness of the complexities of race, gender, class and even sexuality is one of the hallmarks of this literary tradition. Thus, we‟ll investigate the construction and complexities of Southern identity in literature, beginning with post-Civil debates about the New South, then reading several works from the Southern Renascence, the unprecedented flowering of literary production in the 30s, 40s and 50s. We‟ll end by reading Can’t Quit You, Baby, a more contemporary book that grapples with the recent legacy of race, gender and class identity in the South.