Macrobius
Megaphoron
via http://whigdev.com/white/index.php?threads/southern-literature-reading-thread.2518/
continuing archive thread: http://www.thephora.net/forum/forum/private-forums/dixieland/16427-southern-books-thread
A continuation of the Reading Group at Original Dissent:
http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5394
Next week we cover the writings of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis -- popular topics, surely, for a discussion of Southern Literature, but this week we conclude the Antebellum era, which in line with Romanticism generally is more poetic, despite a lingering interest in history and the Revolution. We will return to it briefly, in Week 11, with the 'Age of Poe', who died young and is thus considered after the famous men of the generation preceding, as our book follows dates of birth.
We have had a long spring break, but perhaps we will have more interest, now that school is ending for the younger folk, and the leisure of summer is upon it. What better time to pick up the literature of one's own people, even if in mid course? We have 60 years to cover -- and what a momentous 60 years they are -- from 1826 to 1895.
In this age, the literature of South Carolina comes to the fore -- we have already discussed this, in the evolution of literary society in Columbia around 1825
http://books.google.com/books?id=F_gnAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&lr=#PPA201,M1
The trend continues in this section. We will cover Lagare through Lamar in this post. Francis Lister Hawkes, the famous historian of North Carolina, whose lost colony is older than Virginia's even, will be omitted -- as we already commented on his Virginia Dare (and the naming of http://vdare.com !), and Roanoke colony narrative. However, if you did not read them, by all means do so now.
http://books.google.com/books?id=F_gnAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&lr=#PPA201,M1
Our first writer is Hugh Swinton Legare (accent on the last e, and pronounced 'Luh-GREE' of course), a South Carolinian. In his 'Commerce and Wealth vs. War', delivered on the floor of the Legislature (1837), he comments on a crucial trend in Europe, the increase of prosperity that, by 1850, rendered much of the conflict of the past moot -- and foreshadowed the future conflicts that would devour his state, in a generation, and for a century afterwards, down to our own time. Notice his testimony that the Industrial Revolution dates from 1815-1830, not earlier -- a 'fact' of history that we would do well to discard. The Industrial Revolution, and the re-paganisation of culture ('The Greek Revival', ca. 1820) are concomitant. This is the era that William Cobbett, too, travelled in Europe, and wrote the accounts that so inspired Antony Ludovici, in a later era, that he adopted his name as a pseudonym (though only for his anti-Semitic writings).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cobbett
http://www.anthonymludovici.com/texts.htm
http://www.anthonymludovici.com/jews_pre.htm
His description of the Ardennes (in Belgium), in 1819 and 1835, brackets the exact time of the Industrial Revolution in that country.
His portrait of Demosthenes, given the rising interest in Democracy of his age, is not without interest. His account of an aristocrat's travels, 1825-1826 through the South, must detain us even longer! This fellow must have been among the last to meet Adams and Jefferson, who both died on July 4th, 1826, soon after his visit. The duke's comment on the latent nobility, or aristocracy, of he South, is returned to by many visitors. (Our writer says....)
Indeed, in the era of the Industrial Revolution, this must be one of the last survivals of feudal Europe, however modified by circumstances. Remember that the 'cult of educational degrees' is not yet with us -- the Ph.D. was not found on American soil, except as a foreign import, before the 1870s. The role of the 'military class' has but an echo in our current society, and has long been replaced by professors and managers, as a pseudo-nobility.
That His Highness found the best society in Columbia, goes without saying, for this era.
Moving to our next author, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, we are speaking of the second President of the Republic of Texas, when it was an independent nation and not yet a state. Texas, in fact, had five such, and Lamar succeeded Samuel Houston in this office.
It is truly amazing how many Southerners were both legislators and men of letters -- or not so amazing considering the standards of the age compared to ours. Some of the literature we read is little better than so many blog posts, historical interest aside, yet much betokens a time when men were simply better educated than now. In our readings, that time is quickly passing, and the likes of Adams, Jefferson, down to Webster and Calhoun, will not be seen after the age of Lincoln -- and Lincoln himself was largely self-educated. Soon we will be in an age of autodidacts and nostalgia for a culture destroyed -- and that has not been rebuilt, even to this present day.
Yet for now, our legislators are men of letters, and Lamar's charming poem, 'The Daughter of Mendoza', from his Verse Memorials, points to a more innocent time, when the beauty of a Hispanic woman might be sung by a White Man, in all innocence, in a Texas as confident of its victory and territory, as of its blood.
continuing archive thread: http://www.thephora.net/forum/forum/private-forums/dixieland/16427-southern-books-thread
A continuation of the Reading Group at Original Dissent:
http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5394
Next week we cover the writings of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis -- popular topics, surely, for a discussion of Southern Literature, but this week we conclude the Antebellum era, which in line with Romanticism generally is more poetic, despite a lingering interest in history and the Revolution. We will return to it briefly, in Week 11, with the 'Age of Poe', who died young and is thus considered after the famous men of the generation preceding, as our book follows dates of birth.
We have had a long spring break, but perhaps we will have more interest, now that school is ending for the younger folk, and the leisure of summer is upon it. What better time to pick up the literature of one's own people, even if in mid course? We have 60 years to cover -- and what a momentous 60 years they are -- from 1826 to 1895.
In this age, the literature of South Carolina comes to the fore -- we have already discussed this, in the evolution of literary society in Columbia around 1825
http://books.google.com/books?id=F_gnAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&lr=#PPA201,M1
The trend continues in this section. We will cover Lagare through Lamar in this post. Francis Lister Hawkes, the famous historian of North Carolina, whose lost colony is older than Virginia's even, will be omitted -- as we already commented on his Virginia Dare (and the naming of http://vdare.com !), and Roanoke colony narrative. However, if you did not read them, by all means do so now.
http://books.google.com/books?id=F_gnAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&lr=#PPA201,M1
Our first writer is Hugh Swinton Legare (accent on the last e, and pronounced 'Luh-GREE' of course), a South Carolinian. In his 'Commerce and Wealth vs. War', delivered on the floor of the Legislature (1837), he comments on a crucial trend in Europe, the increase of prosperity that, by 1850, rendered much of the conflict of the past moot -- and foreshadowed the future conflicts that would devour his state, in a generation, and for a century afterwards, down to our own time. Notice his testimony that the Industrial Revolution dates from 1815-1830, not earlier -- a 'fact' of history that we would do well to discard. The Industrial Revolution, and the re-paganisation of culture ('The Greek Revival', ca. 1820) are concomitant. This is the era that William Cobbett, too, travelled in Europe, and wrote the accounts that so inspired Antony Ludovici, in a later era, that he adopted his name as a pseudonym (though only for his anti-Semitic writings).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cobbett
http://www.anthonymludovici.com/texts.htm
http://www.anthonymludovici.com/jews_pre.htm
His description of the Ardennes (in Belgium), in 1819 and 1835, brackets the exact time of the Industrial Revolution in that country.
His portrait of Demosthenes, given the rising interest in Democracy of his age, is not without interest. His account of an aristocrat's travels, 1825-1826 through the South, must detain us even longer! This fellow must have been among the last to meet Adams and Jefferson, who both died on July 4th, 1826, soon after his visit. The duke's comment on the latent nobility, or aristocracy, of he South, is returned to by many visitors. (Our writer says....)
Indeed, in the era of the Industrial Revolution, this must be one of the last survivals of feudal Europe, however modified by circumstances. Remember that the 'cult of educational degrees' is not yet with us -- the Ph.D. was not found on American soil, except as a foreign import, before the 1870s. The role of the 'military class' has but an echo in our current society, and has long been replaced by professors and managers, as a pseudo-nobility.
That His Highness found the best society in Columbia, goes without saying, for this era.
Moving to our next author, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, we are speaking of the second President of the Republic of Texas, when it was an independent nation and not yet a state. Texas, in fact, had five such, and Lamar succeeded Samuel Houston in this office.
It is truly amazing how many Southerners were both legislators and men of letters -- or not so amazing considering the standards of the age compared to ours. Some of the literature we read is little better than so many blog posts, historical interest aside, yet much betokens a time when men were simply better educated than now. In our readings, that time is quickly passing, and the likes of Adams, Jefferson, down to Webster and Calhoun, will not be seen after the age of Lincoln -- and Lincoln himself was largely self-educated. Soon we will be in an age of autodidacts and nostalgia for a culture destroyed -- and that has not been rebuilt, even to this present day.
Yet for now, our legislators are men of letters, and Lamar's charming poem, 'The Daughter of Mendoza', from his Verse Memorials, points to a more innocent time, when the beauty of a Hispanic woman might be sung by a White Man, in all innocence, in a Texas as confident of its victory and territory, as of its blood.
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