Southern Literature : Women Writers

By Patricia Evans

Southern literature can be defined as literature about the South, written by authors who were raised in the South. Characteristics of southern literature are: the importance of family, sense of community, importance of religion, importance of time and place, exploration of the past, sense of human limitation (moral dilemma), and use of southern voice and dialect. Most of the novels are written as a Southerner actually speaks. Many books also describe the historical importance of the southern town.

The area known as the South has been described in various ways. One division is that there are three sub-souths: the coastal/plantation south, which includes the aristocracy; the piedmont red-clay south, which includes farmers and blue-collar workers; and the southern mountains with industry and mining combined with tourism.(1) Another geographical description defines the South as stretching from the Gulf Coast states through Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas to Virginia and Maryland.(2) The descriptions of the towns (local color) are extremely important to this genre. It is often called regional writing. In the essay, "A Brief Introduction to Southern Literature," Margaret Walker wrote, "It is impossible to read our most distinguished (southern) writers without being conscious at once of the land as well as its people. (3)

In this review we will explore the role of southern women writers, including the works of Kate Chopin, Olive Ann Burns, Lee Smith and Eudora Welty. There were many women writers in the nineteenth century, but most have been forgotten. In the first modern historical survey of southern literature, The South in American Literature, Jay B. Hubbell identifies one hundred male writers, but only five women. He justifies this omission by stating, "their writing was generally sentimental and inferior--literature."(4) However, there have been references to nineteenth century women authors and their importance to the feminist movement. Nina Baym wrote in "The Myth of the Myth of Southern Womanhood," that southern women before the Civil War stressed a gender commonality between northern and southern women...and after the war some writers tried to mvoe beyond restrictions. Both before and after the war, women were at odds with the patriarchal order. Baym describes pre-Civil War novels by E.D.E.N. Southworth, Marion Harland and Augusta Evans as having the burden of managing the plantation left to the mistress because the patriarch is inept or absent. (5) In post-Civil War writing, many female characters formed bonds of friendship with other women. Men were not the center of their lives.

In the 1920's, a literary movement known as the Southern Renaissance emerged. Ellen Glasgow and Kate Chopin are considered precursors to this movement. They were considered ahead of their time periods and are called modernists or realists. There was a domination of southern literature for at least four decades in the United States. C. Vann Woodward suggests that the year 1929 was especially significant with the publication of Faulkner's Sartoris and The Sound and the Fury. This started a flood of recognition for all southern authors, and now women became worthy of attention. (7) Women of the Southern Renaissance include Katherine Porter, Eudora Welty, Caroline Gordon and Lillian Hellman. It took critics in the United States longer to notice this literary movement than in other countries. The French were the first to notice this genre, and in 1954, The London Times Literary Supplement stated, "the literature (of the south) has solidly established itself as the most important, the most talented, interesting and valuable in the U. S." (8) Wome writers of the post-Southern Renaissance include Flannery O'Connor, Olive Ann Burns, Fannie Flagg, Lee Smith and Alice Walker.

Today the popularity of southern women writers continues, not only in the United States but also in other countries. There have been at least two symposia on southern literature. One was on the American South at the University of Genoa and the other on Eudora Welty at the A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow. (9)

The importance of southern literature to young adults is enormous. Some of the novels are studied as classics like Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. Many novels have also been made into movies like Ship of Fools,Gone with the Wind, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg, Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Southern novels can be used in English classes as well as in history or social studies classes. In some cases, the teacher should supply information on the history of the southern town in order for students to appreciate the literature. Depending on the book and the time period, students may need some historical background on the period and southern speech patterns. When teaching a unit on southern literature, the teacher should include books from different time periods in United States history. Information about the authors is also important.

References and Bibliography

Inge, Tonnette Bond. Southern Women Writers; The New Generation Univ.of Alabama Pr., 1990.

Tate, Linda. A Southern Weave of Women Univ. of Georgia Pr., 1994.

Manning, Carol S. The Female Tradition in Southern Literature Univ. of Illinois Pr., 1993.

Brantley, Will. Feminine Sense in Southern Memoir Univ. Pr. of Mississippi, 1993.

Jackson, Shelley M. "Josephine Humphreys and the Politics of Postmodern Desire." in

The Mississippi Quarterly, Spring, 1994, v47n2, p275 (11).

Walker, Elinor Ann. "Tradition and Innovation: Southern Women Writers."

Southern Literary Journal Fall, 1991, v24n1, pp98-109.

Petry, Alice Hall. "First Ladies of Southern Literature" in Southern Literary Journal

Fall, 1991, v24n1, pp98-109.

Walker, Nancy. "Southern Women Writers--Tradition and Change" in Contemporary

Literature Spring, 1993, v31n1, pp150-157.

Woodward, C. Vann. "Why the Southern Renaissance?" Virginia Quarterly Review

1975, 51.2, pp222-239.

Alridge, John W. "Eudora Welty: Metamorphosis of a Southern Lady Writer" in

Saturday Review, 11 April 1970, pp21-33, 35-36.

Burns, Olive Ann. "Boy Howdy, Ma'am, You Have Sent Us a Fine Book" in English Journal

December 1989, pp16-20.

Stithem, Marsha A. "Olive Ann Burns and Cold Sassy Tree in the High School Classroom" in

English Journal, December 1994, pp81-84.

Other Related Titles

Griffin, Farah Jasmine. "Sister, Sister? Recent Writings on Black and White Southern Women"

NWSA Journal, Winter 1991, v3n1.
Mark, Rebecca. "Daughters of Time: Creating Woman's Voice in Southern Story"

by Lucinda H. MacKethan; Serious Daring from Within: Female Narrative Strategies in

Eudora Welty's Novels by Franziska Gygax; Southern Women Writers:

The New Generation;" edited by Tonette Bond Inge. in Signs Winter, 1993, v18.

Buchanon, Harriette C. Lee Smith, The Storyteller's Voice Univ. of Alabama Pr., 1990.

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