Jump to content

Confederate literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Confederate novel was a type of fiction specific to North America that was written by Southerners and that centered Confederate States of America nationalism and existed to rationalize and defend a slavery-based economy and create a self-perpetuating cultural ethos.[1] More broadly defined, Confederate literature included nationalistic poetry, songs, and certain memoirs.[2][3] It was stylistically preceded by plantation fiction and anti-Tom novels.[1] Much of Confederate fiction was published serially in magazines and newspapers.[1] Confederate literature long outlasted the nominal Confederate nation-state.[2] Confederate literature and Lost Cause mythology had a symbiotic relationship following the military defeat of the Confederate States of America, a synthesis that culminated in many senses with the 1905 novel The Clansman, which was adapted for film as The Birth of a Nation.[1] Other influential Confederate novels included Richard Malcolm Johnston's Georgia Sketches (1864) and Augusta Jane Evans' Macaria; or, the Altars of Sacrifice (1864). John Hunt Morgan is lionized in most Confederate fiction of Kentucky.[4] One 1898 example is a book called Camp Fires of the Confederacy: Confederate poems and selected songs dedicated the "brave and intrepid host...[in] the long and gallant struggle of the South for political emancipation and autonomy."[5]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d Burnett, Katharine A. (2022-08-31), Diffley, Kathleen; Hutchison, Coleman (eds.), "The Confederacy and Other Southern Fictions", The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American Civil War and Reconstruction (1 ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 73–87, doi:10.1017/9781009159173.008, ISBN 978-1-009-15917-3, retrieved 2023-07-01
  2. ^ a b Duquette, Elizabeth (2013). "Review of Apples and Ashes: Literature, Nationalism, and the Confederate States of America. New Southern Studies". The Journal of Southern History. 79 (4): 964–965. ISSN 0022-4642. JSTOR 23799280.
  3. ^ Phillips, Jason (2013). "Review of Apples and Ashes: Literature, Nationalism, and the Confederate States of America". The Journal of American History. 99 (4): 1254–1255. doi:10.1093/jahist/jas677. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 44307575.
  4. ^ Thompson, Lawrence S. (1952). "The War Between the States in the Kentucky Novel". The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 50 (170): 26–34. ISSN 0023-0243. JSTOR 23373643.
  5. ^ Bree, Benjamin La (1898). Camp Fires of the Confederacy: A Volume of Humorous Anecdotes, Reminiscences, Deeds of Heroism, Thrilling Narratives, Campaigns, Hand-to-hand Fights, Bold Dashes, Terrible Hardships Endured, Imprisonments, ... : Confederate Poems and Selected Songs. Courier-Journal Job Printing Company.

Further reading

[edit]
  • Hutchison, Coleman (2012) Apples and Ashes: Literature, Nationalism, and the Confederate States of America. University of Georgia Press, 2012 ISBN 978-0-8203-4244-3
  • Starnes, John Eric. (2017). Rebels Against the Dream: the American White Nationalist Novel and the Culture of Defeat. Praca doktorska. Katowice : Uniwersytet Śląski