A Confederate novel was a type of fiction specific to North America that was written by Southerners and that centered
Confederate States of America nationalism and existed to rationalize and defend a slavery-based economy and create a self-perpetuating cultural ethos.
More broadly defined, Confederate literature included nationalistic poetry, songs, and certain memoirs.
It was stylistically preceded by
plantation fiction and
anti-Tom novels.
Much of Confederate fiction was published serially in magazines and newspapers.
Confederate literature long outlasted the nominal Confederate nation-state.
Confederate literature and
Lost Cause mythology had a symbiotic relationship following the military defeat of the Confederate States of America, a synthesis that culminated in many senses with the 1905 novel ''
The Clansman'', which was adapted for film as ''
The Birth of a Nation''.
Other influential Confederate novels included
Richard Malcolm Johnston's ''Georgia Sketches'' (1864) and
Augusta Jane Evans' ''Macaria; or, the Altars of Sacrifice'' (1864).
John Hunt Morgan is lionized in most Confederate fiction of Kentucky. One 1898 example is a book called ''Camp Fires of the Confederacy: Confederate poems and selected songs'' dedicated the "brave and intrepid host...
nthe long and gallant struggle of the South for political emancipation and autonomy."
See also
*
Pseudohistory
*
''Gone With the Wind''
*
Neo-Confederate
*
:Lost Cause of the Confederacy
References
Further reading
* Hutchison, Coleman (2012) ''Apples and Ashes: Literature, Nationalism, and the Confederate States of America''. University of Georgia Press, 2012 ISBN 978-0-8203-4244-3
* Starnes, John Eric. (2017). ''Rebels Against the Dream: the American White Nationalist Novel and the Culture of Defeat''. Praca doktorska. Katowice : Uniwersytet Śląski
American literature
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