The decline of the belle in Southern poetry: from Edward Coote Pinkney to Robert Penn Warren

Author

Margaret Jean Henderson

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

West, Robert

Committee Member

Claggett, Shalyn

Committee Member

Atkinson, Ted

Date of Degree

8-7-2010

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of English

Abstract

The literary criticism of the so-called cult of Southern femininity in the fiction and drama of Southern writers is well established. However, there is little criticism regarding these figures in Southern poetry. In response to this gap in scholarship, this study examines the changing representations of the belle or lady in Southern poetry from the early nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century. She appears in poems written by white and African American men and women from three distinct historical and literary periods in the South: the antebellum period, the post-bellum period, and the twentieth century. This study examines the manner in which these different groups of poets in each period represent her. The overall trend of Southern poetry’s portrayal of women through these periods is that it moves from an idealized and mythical image in the antebellum period to a more realistic image in the twentieth century.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/15477

Comments

Southern poetry||gender relations

Recommended Citation

Henderson, Margaret Jean, "The decline of the belle in Southern poetry: from Edward Coote Pinkney to Robert Penn Warren" (2010). Theses and Dissertations. 4303.
https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td/4303