
          Victorian to Modernist Thought in the South, 1919 - 1945
          By Hobson, FredFred Hobson
          Vol. 7, No. 2, 1985, pp. 21-22
          
          The War Within: From Victorian to Modernist Thought in
the South, 1919 - 1945. By Daniel Joseph Singal. University of
North_Carolina Press, 1982.
          In the quarter-century between the close of the First World War and
the close of the Second, the thought and writing of the American South
underwent a change that has been explained in various ways by various
commentators. Allen Tate attributed the change in thought-in
particular, the coming of a Southern literary renascence-to a
"crossing of the ways," an historical moment when agrarian past met
industrialized future with particular intensity, causing a "double
focus, a looking two ways" among Southern writers and
intellectuals. Gerald W. Johnson and others attributed the change to
the shock produced in Dixie when outsiders such as H.L. Mencken
exposed the South as a cultural and literary desert and laid bare all
its cherished institutions and myths. Daniel Singal's approach is
somewhat different. He explains what happened in Southern intellectual
circles between 1919 and 1945 in terms of a progression from Victorian
to Modernist thought. Thus certain Southern writers--historian Ulrich
B. Phillips, economist Broadus Mitchell and novelist Ellen Glasgow--are
"Southern Post-Victorians." Others--William Faulkner, poets John Crowe
Ransom, Donald Davidson and Tate, and sociologist Howard Odum--are
"Modernists by the skin of their teeth." Still others--publisher
William Terry Couch, sociologists Rupert Vance, Guy B. Johnson and
Arthur Raper, and, finally, Robert Penn Warren--are full-fledged
"Modernists."
          Singal's attempt--and in most respects, his accomplishment--is a
noble one. For he attempts to impose order on a body of twentieth
century Southern writing which, to some extent, resists the kind of
order he imposes. Modernism, by its nature, is a many-faceted
thing. As Singal notes, the Modernist tends to unlock the whole being
(by employing Darwin, Marx, Freud, Jung and other thinkers); does not
repress human vitality or deny kinship with other animals (as the
Victorians did); plumbs the human psyche, believes the universe is
unpredictable, and possesses "an ability to live without certainty."
True enough. But because of the protean quality of Modernism, one might-by focusing on some
particular aspect of it at the expense of other aspects--take Singal's
thirteen Southerners and group them in many different ways. I would
contend, for example, that Davidson and perhaps Odum were not
Modernists at all, even by the skin of their teeth--and that Faulkner
and Tate were closer than Couch to being the real thing.
          But to focus on such distinctions is to miss the immense value of
Singal's book. In fact, The War Within is an enormously suggestive and
important work, thoroughly researched and very well written. Singal's
first chapter, on the South and Victorian culture, is highly
instructive: Victorianism is not so hard to pin down as Modernism. His
treatment of Phillips and Mitchell is particularly good, and his
discussions of Faulkner and of the Southern Agrarians, particularly
Warren, are sound.
          But it is Singal's discussion of the Chapel_Hill group--the
"crusading" North Carolinians, as Donald Davidson called them--that is
perhaps most valuable. Five of his thirteen subjects were associated
with the University of North_Carolina, and four of those five--Couch,
Vance, Johnson and Raper--have not previously received their full
due. Howard Odum, of course, is the most significant figure in the
Chapel_Hill renascence of the 1920s and 1930s. But what has not been
previously explored-although it has been frequently acknowledged-is
the contribution to Southern intellectual life of Couch and the
University of North_Carolina Press and the contributions of the second

generation of Chapel_Hill sociologists-Vance, Johnson and Raper-all of
whom studied under Odum but who differed from him (and from each
other) in their approach to Southern life and in their degree of
militancy. Vance was more hard-boiled than Odum. Johnson was more the
true social scientist. Raper was more militant. Couch quarreled with
Odum. The "Chapel_Hill group," that is to say, was no more unified
than the Vanderbilt group."
          As valuable as Singal's discussions of Chapel_Hill sociologists and
Vanderbilt Agrarians are, he omits or dismisses several other
Southerners of the period 1919-1945 whose inclusion would have made
his study even richer. Although center stage for the intellectual
debate within the South in the 1920s and 1930s was marked "whites
only," Southern blacks were hardly silent. Equally indefensible is the
dismissal of a white Southern woman such as Lillian_Smith who edited
the most outspoken Southern journal of its time, South
Today, between 1936 and 1945--particularly since, in many ways,
Smith seems to have been a more representative Modernist than many of
the author's choices. More than any other Southerner of her time,
Smith acknowledged all aspects of being human, truly plumbed the
Southern psyche, relied heavily on Freud, and, in the 1930s and 40s,
openly condemned racial segregation in any form it might take.
          Singal does refer to Smith in passing on two occasions and
acknowledges, in the book's conclusion, that "with her the assault
against the Victorian ethos reached maturity" and that she, "more than
anyone else, brought the issue of race and segregation into the open."
He quotes her description of the white Southern mind--"Not only Negroes
but everything dark, dangerous, evil must be pushed to the rim of
one's life"--and cites her belief that genteel Southerners had certain
wishes and desires which "we learned early to send to the Dark-town of
our unconscious."
          Yet Singal dismisses such pronouncements as "today [having] about
them the ring of the commonplace." "Her description of southerners as
repressed, violent, and perverted strikes readers of the 1980s as
extravagant and overdramatic. . ." And now "Smith's insights have
become stale."
          I do not think so. And, indeed, even if some of her logic should
today appear "commonplace," her message--in its time and place, when it
mattered most--was both original and courageous. That she was heard is
suggested by the attention she received, not always favorably, from
Southern liberals. "A modern, feminine counterpart of the ancient
Hebrew prophets," Ralph McGill called her; the William Lloyd Garrison
of the South, Virginius Dabney said.
          Singal's study, then, omits significant points of view within
Southern society--blacks, women (except for Glasgow), outspoken
prophets such as Smith, and others who spoke with radically different
voices. The study is principally--with the notable exception of
Faulkner and the Agrarians--a discussion of certain aspects of
twentieth century white male Southern liberalism. To capture the full
flavor of Southern intellectual life between 1919 and 1945 the author
might have included some less established, less genteel Southern
voices. But what Singal does he does well indeed: he understands well
most of the mainstream intellectual and literary currents of his
period, and he has written a book filled with energy and
originality.
          
            Fred Hobson teaches in the English Department of the
University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. His most recent book is
Tell About the South: The Southern Rage to Explain
(L.S.U. Press, 1983). 
          
        
