College
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The
Charleston Literary Renaissance, Since the close of the Civil War, creative activity had been slight in Charleston, South Carolina. By 1920 the long delayed effect of literary efforts beyond the city reached the local population. Now, after a period of intellectual lethargy, the city was awakening to play a vital role. The most powerful stimulus for the new movement was the Poetry Society
of South Carolina, established in October, 1920. There were six outstanding
authors who promoted this project: DuBose Heyward, Herbert Ravenel
Sass, Beatrice Ravenel, John Bennett, Hervey Allen, and Josephine
Pinckney. The untiring efforts of Bennett, Allen, and Heyward sponsored
a burst of enthusiasm and talent that resulted in an astounding variety
of regional works. The Society also served as a springboard for the
production of latent material and identified the six chief authors
as a literary coterie. Perhaps the best known of the Charleston litterateurs was DuBose
Heyward, the first Southern writer to treat the Negro seriously and
realistically. Who does not know of Porgy and his goat? Who has not
heard the hypnotic "Summertime," the poignant "Bess,
You Is My Woman Now," and the catchy rhythm of "I Got Plenty
O' Nuttin'"? Before Porgy, the novel, appeared in 1925, Heyward had collaborated
with Hervey Allen to publish the first fruit of the "Charleston
Renaissance," a slender volume of poems entitled Carolina
Chansons. The poems deal mainly with local landscapes and legendary
history. The longest poem is entitled "The Last Crew," which is
surprisingly relevant today. A riveting narrative dramatizes the first
successful submarine attack on an enemy ship in wartime. The Confederate
H.L. Hunley sank the U.S.S. Housatonic off Sullivan's
Island near Charleston on February 17, 1864. The "Last Crew"
did not return; however, in the year 2000 the ultimate fate of the
little torpedo boat was discovered. After Porgy came a dramatized version co-authored with Heyward's
wife. In 1935 Porgy and Bess, hailed as the first American
folk opera, opened in Boston and New York. This opera, made memorable
by the music of the Gershwins, was an instant success. Other works
include Mamba's Daughters, a powerful story of three generations
of Negroes; Peter Ashley, a romantic novel of Charleston on
the brink of the Civil War; The Half Pint Flask, a psychological
study of the Negro; and Brass Ankle, a drama of Southern characters
trapped in a social dilemma. There are additional books dealing with
other themes and regions, but Heyward's ultimate place in literature
will be determined by his poems and stories of local subjects and
places. Porgy and Bess was destined to become the most enduring
achievement of the Charleston Renaissance. A versatile and prolific writer, Herbert Ravenel Sass has delineated,
with the keen eyes of a naturalist and the sensitiveness of a poet,
the coastal islands and swamps and the life there. The titles of his
collections of essays and stories are indicative of the contents:
The Way of the Wild, Adventures in Green Places, On
the Wings of a Bird, and Gray Eagle. His first novel, War
and Drums, a romance of colonial Carolina, was followed in 1933
by Look Back to Glory, a novel that presents without prejudice
the structure of Southern civilization and the factors underlying
secession. Superimposed on profound ideas is high romance with all
the ingredients—love, hate, chivalry, the code of honor, beautiful
ladies, gallant gentlemen, and action within the cannon's roar! In
two later novels Sass returns to his favorite theme—the Indian:
Hear Me, My Chiefs! and Emperor Brims. Beatrice Ravenel was a writer of sentimental short stories, which
appeared in such magazines as Harper's, Scribner's,
and The Atlantic Monthly. Her chief contribution to the Charleston
activity was a volume of regional poems entitled The Arrow of Lightning
(1926). "Poe's Mother," a long poem in this volume, is an
interesting departure from her usual themes of landscapes, the Indians,
the Negro, and Charleston's dramatic past. Ravenel's fiction and editorials
were worthy achievements; however, it was the enormous body of regional
verses that dictated her reputation as one of the South's most accomplished
writers in the twenties. When John Bennett made Charleston his home in 1902, his Master
Skylark, a juvenile classic, was already famous. Barnaby Lee
followed that same year. Bennett carefully researched the superstitions
and spirituals of the Negro, and in 1921 his colorful embellishment
of a local legend became Madame Margot: a Grotesque Legend of Old
Charleston. Earlier Bennett had written The Treasure of Peyre
Gaillard. The Pigtale of Ah Lee Ben Loo, whimsical stories
and poems, illustrates Bennett's artistry as a poet and silhouettist.
Bennett gave unstintingly of his talent and energy to the work of
the Poetry Society and the cultural development of his adopted city.
Identifying with Bennett shortly after his arrival in Charleston,
Hervey Allen, a transplanted teacher-writer who drifted South after
World War I, worked industriously with the Poetry Society. His poems
in Carolina Chansons include the familiar themes of pirate
legends, landscapes, the city, the aristocracy, the Indian, and the
Negro. After Allen left Charleston in 1924, convinced that environment
does not play a major role in literature, his biography of Edgar Allan
Poe appeared. Allen was catapulted to fame when Anthony Adverse
was published in 1933. Josephine Pinckney—like Heyward, Bennett, and Allen—was
a prime force in the Poetry Society. Her most significant contribution
was an exquisite volume of poetry entitled Seadrinking Cities.
The prevailing theme is life in the cities on the Southern waterfront,
portrayed in terms of her beloved Charleston. The prose works of Pinckney,
essentially a poet, lie outside the period under discussion. It is
fitting, however, to mention two. Hilton Head, a lengthy story
based on the life of Henry Woodward, a colonial surgeon and ancestor
of Pinckney, was published in 1941. It was followed in 1945 by Three
O'clock Dinner, a novel of traditions, class distinction, and
bitter jealousies in a more modern Charleston. It was through this
novel and several that followed that Pinckney's fame spread beyond
her native city. From 1920 until 1933 there was more literary activity in Charleston
than in any other American city of comparable size. There were more
authors producing works of distinction than in any other period of
the city's history. Charleston had truly become the cultural and literary
capital of the South. Note The origin of Marjorie Peale's work was her Duke University thesis
entitled Charleston as a Literary Center, 1920-1933. This work
was the first to research the Charleston movement and present the
findings in a logical and readable fashion. The nucleus of the text
was the lives and works of John Bennett, Beatrice Ravenel, Herbert
Ravenel Sass, Hervey Allen, DuBose Heyward, and Josephine Pinckney.
Four were native Charlestonians; Bennett and Allen were "visitors"
who adopted the city. Peale's research included interviews with the writers, biographical
facts from personal letters and scrapbooks, local newspapers, the
Yearbooks of the Poetry Society of South Carolina, and a lengthy
written account of the Charleston movement from Hervey Allen, who
had left the city. It is the author's hope that The Charleston Literary Renaissance, the Golden Years: 1920-1933 will unlock the door to Charleston's rich heritage, a "golden age" when six authors emerged as the vanguard of an accomplished group of writers whose works celebrated Charleston, the place and the people. For further information and/or to buy the book, write or call |
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