Reading Archibald Rutledge

South Carolina poet Archibald Rutledge deserves to be read. I started reading and writing about Rutledge during my early grad school days at The College of Charleston. And I remain fascinated by his work because of its honesty and compelling literary descriptions of the rural South before automobiles, machines, and consumer culture ruined it. Contrary to what some might think, this older, more refined, and neighborly South continued to exist until relatively recently, I would say at most two or three generations back. Rutledge, descended from one of South Carolina’s oldest and most important families, offers us a glimpse of an earlier South.