Many traditionalist Southern writers of the twentieth century claimed the South as the final holdout of true Christendom, the last bulwark of Western civilization. But was that necessarily true? Southern writers, by capitalizing upon a cultural difference between a pastoral South and an industrial North, explained Southern distinctiveness through an agrarian ideology. Their writings clearly tell us this.
What is far less conspicuous is just how much traditionalist Southern writers had in common with traditionalists elsewhere, primarily those in the American North and Britain. Scholars often look to Southern literature to help explain why the South is different; this study couples traditionalist littérateurs of the South with those of the North and Britain to explain where the difference ends. Why do the similarities matter? Writing the South gave expression to a broader conflict between two opposing dynamics: that of a Classical/Western tradition and that of a modern pursuit of wealth and progress. This mêlée was not confined to the South; it could be found within national and transatlantic intellectual discourse. From the early to mid twentieth century, Southern writers tried to show how the South’s adherence to agriculture, religion, and history could help Americans make sense of their time and place. Many of these writer/thinkers happened to be Southerners, but at the heart of their collective enterprise was a call for a return to aristocratic Christian civilization. How then might the theme of religion in Southern texts be understood as part of a national and transatlantic discourse about tradition and faith? To answer the question, this study does not tell a story about the individual lives and careers of writers, but rather the life of a conversation. It is about the history of an informed public discussion, between printed works and among leading intellectuals who thought much about the meaning of religion within culture and history.