Literature Of The American South

An important new anthology that redefines the contours of one of America's most vital literary traditions.

For nearly four centuries, the American South has been home to a vital literary culture, much admired but too narrowly defined. This groundbreaking anthology reconsiders Southern writing from its seventeenth-century origins to its flourishing present, across lines of color, gender, economic status, and urban and agrarian identities. It gathers the work of 87 classic, new, and newly rediscovered writers and represents all genres -- poetry, short fiction, drama, novels, autobiography, manifestos, memoirs, journals, and letters -- as well as songs, preaching, and storytelling within the Native American and African American oral traditions. From the early writings of John Smith at Jamestown and Thomas Jefferson in Virginia to the slave narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass to the modernist experiments of William Faulkner and Jean Toomer to the fiction of Dorothy Allison, the poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa, and the memoirs of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Literature of the American South sheds new light on the range, diversity, and creative power of the Southern imagination.

With lively period introductions, author headnotes, annotations, and bibliographies, Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology brings a new audience to the vibrant and varied traditions of Southern literature.

reconsiders southern writing from its seventeenth-century origins to its flourishing present. Featuring the works of eighty-seven classic, contemporary, and newly recovered writers of all genres--poetry, short fiction, drama, novels, autobiography, criticism, sermons, memoirs, journals, and letters--this groundbreaking anthology sheds new light on the creative power of the southern imagination.

For nearly four centuries, the American South has been home to a vital literary tradition.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 1157-1179) and index.

William L. Andrews (Ph.D. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) is the editor of The Literature of Slavery and Freedom; co-editor of The Literature of the Reconstruction to the New Negro Renaissance. He is E. Maynard Adams Professor of English, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is general editor of Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography and The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology, and co-editor of The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Other works include The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt; To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865; Sisters of the Spirit; The Curse of Caste by Julia C. Collins; Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave; and Slave Narratives after Slavery.Minrose C. Gwin (Ph.D. University of Tennessee) is professor of English at the University of New Mexico. She is the author of The Feminine and Faulkner: Reading (Beyond) Sexual Difference and Black and White Women of the Old South: The Peculiar Sisterhood in American Literature.Trudier Harris (Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the author of five books, most recently The Power of the Porch: The Storyteller's Craft in Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan, and a co-editor of The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States and The Oxford Companion to African American Literature.Fred Hobson (Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is Lineberger Professor in the Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Mencken: A Life and The Southern Writer in the Postmodern World, and a co-editor of Southern Literary Journal.