The poets of the South have placed special
emphasis on (1) melody, (2) beauty, (3) artistic workmanship. In creations
embodying a combination of such qualities, Poe shows wonderful mastery.
More than any other American poet, he has cast on the reader
"... the spell which no slumber
Of witchery may test,
The rhythmical number
Which lull'd him to rest."
After reading Poe and Lanier, we feel that we can say to the South what Poe
whispered to the fair Ligeia:--
"No magic shall sever
Thy music from thee."
The wealth of sunshine flooding the southern plains, the luxuriance of the
foliage and the flowers, and the strong contrasts of light and shade and
color are often reflected in the work of southern writers. Such verse as
this is characteristic:--
"Beyond the light that would not die
Out of the scarlet-haunted sky,
Beyond the evening star's white eye
Of glittering chalcedony,
Drained out of dusk the plaintive cry
Of 'whippoorwill!' of 'whippoorwill!'"
[Footnote: Cawein, _Red Leaves and Roses_.]
In the work of her later writers of fiction, the South has presented, often
in a realistic setting of natural scenes, a romantic picture of the life
distinctive of the various sections,--of the Creoles of Louisiana, of the
mountaineers of Tennessee, of the blue grass region of Kentucky, of
Virginia in the golden days, and of the Georgia negro, whose folk lore and
philosophy are voiced by Uncle Remus.
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