ABSTRACT
In the Southerner's deeply traditional reliance on social and political order, combined with the decay of the liberal hope which arose in the Reconstruction, one may find in appreciable measure, I believe, the compelling force and dominant mood ofsuch renascence ofliterature as is now present in the South. With those who regard literature in general as an attempt to clarify some confusion, to resolve some social or personal quandary, to recover some order, one may agree that Southern literature is not unique in its archetypal situations. Yet the degree and nature of the confusion are in a measure distinctive; and Allen Tate has weighed well his metaphor in speaking ofthe 'fascinating nightmare called the South'.
