The Politics of Southern Pastoral Literature, 1785–1885: Jeffersonian Afterlives

Description

In The Politics of Southern Pastoral Literature, 1785–1885: Jeffersonian Afterlives,Peter Templeton presents a wide-ranging and systematic evaluation of pastoral in the nineteenth-century Southern novel, offering an explicit appraisal of the philosophical and political rationale of pastoral literature alongside the existing body of research into the image of Jefferson following his death. Rather than assuming a homogeneous South, Templeton locates Southern pastoral in its specific political context, offering readings of significant factors such as the literary representation of landscape, of class and the yeoman ideal, and the institution of slavery and its intellectual underpinnings. Focusing on a six key Southern authors, both canonical and relatively understudied, the book charts key transformations in the politics of pastoral literature in the period, and noteworthy reconfigurations in the representation of Jefferson and his philosophies, in order to analyze what these signified to nineteenth-century Americans. In doing so, the text also demonstrates how ideologies react to the stresses imposed on them by political realities. Front Matter ....Pages i-ix Introduction: The Pastoral Ideal of Thomas Jefferson (Peter Templeton)....Pages 1-43 The Pastoral Double-Plot of Swallow Barn (Peter Templeton)....Pages 45-74 The Cavalier Cartography of The Kentuckian in New-York (Peter Templeton)....Pages 75-106 Strange Temporality of Pastoral in The Partisan Leader (Peter Templeton)....Pages 107-134 John Esten Cooke and Democratic Pastoral (Peter Templeton)....Pages 135-161 Domestic Pastoral in The Holcombes (Peter Templeton)....Pages 163-191 Joel Chandler Harris and the Pastoral of the New South (Peter Templeton)....Pages 193-219 Conclusion (Peter Templeton)....Pages 221-232 Back Matter ....Pages 233-249