Southern Renaissance facts for kids

The Southern Renaissance was a time in the 1920s and 1930s when writing from the American South became popular and important again. Many famous writers appeared during this period, like William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Margaret Mitchell, and Zora Neale Hurston.

What Was the Southern Renaissance?

Before this time, writers from the South often wrote historical romance stories. These stories usually focused on the "Lost Cause" of the Confederate States of America. They made the Confederate army and people seem heroic during the Civil War. They also described the South before the war (called the Antebellum South) as a perfect place.

The Southern Renaissance changed this way of writing. New authors started to explore three main ideas in their books:

• The Weight of History: Many people in the South still remembered slavery, the period of Reconstruction after the war, and the South's defeat. Writers explored how this past affected people.
• Southern Culture: The South had a very conservative culture. Family, religion, and community were very important. Writers looked at how individuals found their place in this strong community.
• Racial Issues: The South had a difficult history with race. These new writers were far enough from the Civil War to write about these issues more fairly.

These writers also used new ways of telling stories. They used techniques like stream of consciousness, which shows a character's thoughts as they happen. An example is William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying.

William Faulkner is one of the most famous and important writers from this period. He even won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 for his work.

New Ideas in Southern Writing

Even before the Southern Renaissance, some writers started to challenge old ideas. After the Civil War, many Southern books supported the "Lost Cause." But a few authors began to question this view.

Starting in the 1880s, some white Southern writers, like George Washington Cable and Mark Twain, spoke out. Mark Twain, who grew up in the slave state of Missouri, often wrote about the South. These writers showed how Black people were treated unfairly. They also made fun of other old Southern traditions.

In the 1890s, writers like Walter Hines Page and professors William Peterfield Trent and John Spencer Bassett criticized the South's lack of new ideas. In 1903, Bassett, a professor at Trinity College (now Duke University), upset many white Southerners. He called the African-American leader Booker T. Washington "the greatest man, save General Lee, born in the South in a hundred years."

The strongest criticisms of the "Lost Cause" before World War I came from African-American writers. One famous example is Charles W. Chesnutt. His novels, The House Behind the Cedars (1900) and The Marrow of Tradition (1901), challenged old ideas. However, for a long time, white writers and critics did not include African-American authors as part of "Southern literature."

The Southern Renaissance was the first big movement in Southern writing to openly discuss these criticisms. It also responded to outside critics like H. L. Mencken. Mencken wrote an essay in 1917 called "The Sahara of the Bozart." He said the South was the most boring and least intellectual part of the U.S. This made many Southerners angry. But it also encouraged new Southern writers who already had similar thoughts. Mencken's later attacks made them want to explore and celebrate what made the South unique.

The Fugitives

Many people say the Southern Renaissance began with a group called "The Fugitives." These were poets and critics who met at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, after World War I.

The group included writers like John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren. They created a magazine called The Fugitive (1922–1925). They named it this because they wanted to escape from old, strict ways of thinking about the South.

The Southern Agrarians

The Southern Renaissance also grew as the rural South started to change. New factories and industries came to the region during and after World War I.

Some writers from the Southern Renaissance did not like this industrial growth. They expressed their views in a famous collection of essays called I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition (1930). These writers became known as Southern Agrarians. They believed in the importance of farming and traditional Southern life.

Lasting Impact

Many Southern writers who came after the 1930s were inspired by the Southern Renaissance. This includes authors like Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, and Harper Lee. Harper Lee's famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. These writers continued to explore the complex history and culture of the American South.