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African American authors --- African Americans in literature --- Authors, American --- Afro-Americans in literature --- Negroes in literature --- Biography --- Walker, Margaret, --- Alexander, Margaret Abigail Walker,

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Today{u2019}s critical establishment assumes that sentimentalism is an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary mode that all but disappeared by the twentieth century. In this book, Jennifer Williamson argues that sentimentalism is alive and well in the modern era. By examining working-class literature that adopts the rhetoric of ?feeling right? in order to promote a proletarian or humanist ideology as well as neo-slave narratives that wrestle with the legacy of slavery and cultural definitions of African American families, she explores the ways contemporary authors engage with familiar sentimental clichés and ideals. Williamson covers new ground by examining authors who are not generally read for their sentimental narrative practices, considering the proletarian novels of Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, and John Steinbeck alongside neo-slave narratives written by Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison. Through careful close readings, Williamson argues that the appropriation of sentimental modes enables both sympathetic thought and systemic action in the proletarian and neo-slave novels under discussion. She contrasts appropriations that facilitate such cultural work with those that do not, including Kathryn Stockett{u2019}s novel and film The Help. The book outlines how sentimentalism remains a viable and important means of promoting social justice while simultaneously recognizing and exploring how sentimentality can further white privilege. Sentimentalism is not only alive in the twentieth century. It is a flourishing rhetorical practice among a range of twentieth-century authors who use sentimental tactics in order to appeal to their readers about a range of social justice issues. This book demonstrates that at stake in their appeals is who is inside and outside of the American family and nation.

Sentimentalism in literature --- Sentimentalisme dans la littérature --- Sentimentaliteit in de literatuur --- American literature --- History and criticism --- 20th century --- Lumpkin, Grace --- Johnson, Josephine Winslow --- Steinbeck, John --- Walker, Margaret Abigail --- Butler, Octavia E. --- Morrison, Toni --- Sentiments --- Littérature américaine --- Problèmes sociaux --- Littérature et société --- Dans la littérature --- Histoire et critique --- Sentimentalism in literature. --- History and criticism. --- Dans la littérature. --- Histoire et critique. --- Sentimentalisme (littérature)

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"The first full realization of the family saga in the southern tradition, Stephens says, was George Washington Cable's The Grandissimes (1880)."--BOOK JACKET. "Stephens gives an extensive tour of twentieth-century authors who have used and further developed the southern family saga. He examines the works of writers such as T. S. Stribling and William Faulkner, who after the First World War reinterpreted the Civil War and its consequences in terms of a displaced inheritance; Caroline Gordon, Allen Tate, and Andrew Lytle, who built on the displacement motif to show family decline; Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, and Shirley Ann Grau, who in focusing on family stories transmitted by women explored implications of the matriarchal-patriarchal conflict resonating through generations; and Margaret Walker, Alex Haley, Ernest Gaines, and Toni Morrison, who showed the black family's struggle to find a place in history and later in memories of legendary Africa. Authors whom Stephens identifies as third-generation writers, such as Reynolds Price and Lee Smith, reach beyond history in their sagas to find moments of mythic vision, or they reduce family and public history to the pastless present of popular culture."--BOOK JACKET. "The literary tradition of the family saga thrives in the South today, Stephens says, because there exists an operative context in which to read the saga: namely, some version of providential order, which affords glimpses of purpose beyond the daily struggles of generations. The Family Saga in the South will make an inestimable contribution to understanding this vital tradition in southern letters while pointing the way for study of the genre in other cultures."--BOOK JACKET.

Domestic fiction [American ] --- Southern States --- History and criticism --- Southern States in literature --- Historical fiction [American ] --- Faulkner, William --- Criticism and interpretation --- Stribling, Thomas Sigismund --- Gordon, Caroline --- Tate, Allen --- Porter, Katherine Anne --- Welty, Eudora --- Walker, Margaret Abigail --- Haley, Alex Palmer --- Gaines, Ernest J. --- Morrison, Toni --- Smith, Lee --- Grau, Shirley Ann --- American fiction --- Domestic fiction, American --- Historical fiction, American --- Families in literature --- Family in literature --- In literature.

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Slavery in literature --- Mitchell, Margaret --- Bontemps, Arna Wendell --- Elkins, Stanley --- Styron, William, 1925-2006. The Confessions of Nat Turner --- Morrison, Toni --- Gaither, Frances --- Jones, Edward P. --- Butler, Octavia E. --- Chopin, Kate O'Flaherty --- Douglass, Frederick --- Haley, Alex Palmer --- Martin, Valerie --- Onstott, Kyle --- Reed, Ishmael --- Walker, Margaret Abigail --- Williams, Sherley Anne

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African Americans in literature --- Afro-Americans in literature --- Afro-Amerikanen in de literatuur --- Afro-Américains dans la littérature --- Amerikaanse zwarten in de literatuur --- Black Americans in literature --- Negroes in literature --- Noirs américains dans la littérature --- Zwarte Amerikanen in de literatuur --- American fiction --- Historical fiction, American --- African Americans in literature. --- African American authors --- History and criticism. --- Women authors --- History and criticism --- Historical fiction [American ] --- 20th century --- Walker, Margaret Abigail --- Jones, Gayl --- Williams, Sherley Anne --- Morrison, Toni --- Perry, Phyllis Alesia