On Matters Southern—Essays About Literature And Culture, 1964-2000

Marion Montgomery, family man, citizen, professor, literary critic, poet, philosopher, is a prolific defender of the poetic, cultural and critical vision of the Fugitive poets, the Southern Agrarian writers, and the New Critics of the 20th century. He has published more than 20 major works of criticism in the past 40 years. This volume presents 26 of his essays, selected and edited by Michael M. Jordan with a foreword by noted historian Eugene D. Genovese. It is a good introduction to the thinking and writing of a man who speaks for southern conservatism with passion and imagination, with head and heart, exercising both faith and reason. This work is divided into five sections—“The Author at Work and at Home,” “On Place and Region,” “On Fugitives, Agrarians, and New Critics,” “On Individual Authors” and “On Books and Schooling.” In the essays Montgomery discusses the importance of place in all serious literature, but especially in southern letters. He notes differences between southern and northern fiction. He pays tribute to Andrew Lytle, Madison Jones, and M.E. Bradford, and explicates the fiction of Walker Percy. Taken together, the essays reveal Montgomery’s gifts and temperament: a keen intellect combined with a reverential awareness of the importance of tradition.

Marion Montgomery is professor emeritus of English at the University of Georgia.