Lanier
shared with Simms, Hayne, and Timrod the bitter misfortunes of the war.
Father Ryan is affectionately remembered for his stirring war lyrics and
Father Tabb for his nature poems, sacred verse, and entertaining humor. The
nature poetry of Cawein abounds in the color and warmth of the South.
In modern southern fiction there is to be found some of the most
imaginative, artistic, and romantic work of the entire country in the
latter quarter of the nineteenth century. Rich local color renders much of
this fiction attractive. Harris fascinates the ear of the young world with
the Georgia negro's tales of Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit. The Virginia negroes
live in the stories of Page. Craddock introduces the Tennessee mountaineer,
and Allen, the Kentucky farmer, scholar, and gentleman, while Cable paints
the refined Creole in the fascinating city of New Orleans.
Notwithstanding the use of dialect and other realistic touches of local
color, the fiction is largely romantic. The careful analysis of motives and
detailed accounts of the commonplace, such as the eastern realists
developed in the last part of the nineteenth century, are for the most part
absent from this southern fiction.
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