The Southern Renaissance
Two Founding Members from Giles County, Tennessee
John Crowe Ransom and Donald Grady Davidson
Yolanda Hughey Ezell
Careful scholars of literature have maintained that Tennessee
literature did not “truly come of age” until the appearance of a group of
poets called “Fugitives” at Vanderbilt University in 1922. Developing a
little later was a group of twelve writers- mostly Vanderbilt instructors
and students- known as “Agrarians.” During the period of 1922-1925,
the Fugitives published nineteen issues of a journal they called The
Fugitive, which was devoted almost exclusively to verse. Sometimes
called “the inaugurators of the Southern Renaissance,” the Fugitives
were in close contact with the Agrarians, and several were within the
ranks of both groups. The Agrarians, who published a variety of essays,
articles and books, were perhaps best known for their anthology published
in 1930, entitled I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition.
The work of both Fugitives and Agrarians was praised and condemned
but scarcely ignored.1
The term renaissance is applied to an awakening of one’s soul. It’s where man looks at his past, present and future and suddenly gains clarity. In each age of man such a phase comes along that stimulates members of society to take a good look at what is going on around them. Generally the awakening is caused by an outside event or person- a catalyst- that shocks man into attentiveness.
In the case of two of Giles County’s native sons- John Crowe Ransom and Donald Grady Davidson, it was an age-old question of whether life imitates art or if art imitates life. It was a case of “what was”, “what is” and “what will be” balancing on a picket fence. Their public lives and careers were divided into three distinct eras- The Fugitive, Agrarians, and the New Criticism. In each era these men along with their contemporaries struggled to come to terms with life. The two men were literary giants who did much to enlighten not only themselves but generations of poets, writers and historians, as well as philosophers.
These two men, though vastly different in nature and approach, were instrumental in leading southern writers and historians to look at the image that the media was portraying of them. They were teachers, poets, novelists, essayists, and critics. They challenged each other and those around them to stretch their imaginations, to dream. They also held onto an idealistic image of their childhood, a rather naïve idea of what their forefathers represented, and a grim attitude over the legacy they would leave behind. In some ways these men were a paradox of the times. They represented past, present and future at a time when the South was still nursing wounded pride over losing the Civil War.
If southerners talk a lot about the Civil War that’s easy to
account for. When I was coming along, if you had a difference of
opinion with another boy, you had a fistfight. And I had many a
more. The ones I remember with the greatest clarity are the ones
I lost. And that is the way it is with the Civil War.
Shelby Foote
Beginnings
John Crowe Ransom was born April 30, 1888 in Pulaski, Tennessee. He was the third of four children born to John James and Sara Ella Crowe Ransom. To many Ransom represented the Old South due to his heritage and his family’s place in history- his maternal lineage had roots in the Ku Klux Klan.2
Donald Grady Davidson was born August 18, 1893 in Campbellsville, Tennessee to Elma Wells and William Bluford Davidson. His parents were both teachers. His father taught school in rural communities while his mother taught piano. In some ways, his roots ran deeper in the Giles County community than the elder Ransom. Davidson returned to this area briefly in 1916 to teach and he married a local girl, Theresa Sherrer.
The lives of these two men paralleled each other in many ways. Both received some schooling in Spring Hill at Branham and Hughes School. Both entered Vanderbilt University at an early age. Both taught in rural communities. Each served on the faculty at Vanderbilt. Each served in World War I. Ransom was a commissioned officer, serving as an artillery officer in France, and Davidson was a volunteer, who served as a first lieutenant in the infantry.3
Though they were from the same county, Ransom and Davidson did not meet until 1914. Ransom joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University and Davidson returned to expand his studies. In some ways it was the beginning of the Southern Renaissance that would link these men together in the minds of historians and, in others, it was the beginning of a spiritual and literary journey that would last a lifetime. And yet, “ a strong friendship did not exist between Ransom and Davidson.”4 Theirs was a relationship built around “shared causes- especially the Fugitive and Agrarianism.5 It was a turbulent alliance with many years of no communication between the two, which caused Davidson considerable grief.6
The Fugitives
The alliance began in the fall of 1914 in the most peculiar of ways. A self-proclaimed mystic, a non-practicing Jew from a prominent mercantile family in Nashville7 by the name of Sidney Mattron Hirsh was the catalyst that brought together these two young men along with others who liked to engage in philosophical debate. Until this time, most discussions of this caliber took place at Vanderbilt in the Culmet Club, an honorary society made up of journalists or would-be writers.8
Hirsh was a somewhat free spirit, an adventurer with no formal education and a varied background. “He had been the heavyweight boxing champion of the pacific fleet, and was a great friend of Gertrude Stein in her early days. He had also been a model for many of the painters of Paris: he was an enormously handsome man, very big, perfectly formed in his way- and he became the center, almost the idol of the group.”9 His introduction into the group was via his half-brother, Nathaniel Hirsh, who was a student at Vanderbilt University.
When interviewed years later, Robert Penn Warren, a former student and contemporary of both men, described the cause as “poetic exploration.”10 He was quick to point out that he was not around at the inception of the group, as he was younger, but he had much to say about the group many called the Vanderbilt or Nashville Fugitives:
“The Fugitive movement had so little to do with Vanderbilt.
Certain members of the faculty thought it was rather a shame to be
associated with the Fugitive group. It didn’t seem good enough
academically or something…but it started long before my days
there….It was before the war, before America got into the war
anyway. Some were businessmen: one was a young banker,
one was a merchant…young men who were interested in
philosophy rather than in poetry who met together because
they liked each other, because they all had common interests.
They met at each other’s houses and talked philosophy
till a late hour. Bit by bit, some of the people involved began to
write poetry and show their poetry to each other. By the time I
came along, writing poetry or discussing it was the main interest.
The group was very small, ten or twelve or thirteen people, with
no formal organization, simply a matter of friendship. And they
began to publish a little magazine called The Fugitive.11
Members of the group in addition to Hirsh, Ransom, and Davidson were Walter Clyde Curry, William Yandell Elliot, Stanley Johnson and Alec B. Stevenson. After World War I a number of younger undergraduates and poets from outside the circle began attending meetings. They included Merrill Moore, Allen Tate, Jesse Wills, Alfred Starr and Robert Penn Warren. And after she had won the 1924 Nashville Poetry Prize sponsored by Maxwell House12 Laura Riding Gottschalk, then the wife of a professor of history at the University of Louisville, became an honorary member of the group.
It was Hirsh who suggested the group publish a magazine of verse. The recommended title for the magazine came from Alec B. Stevenson. No one was fully certain about the meaning behind the title or the reason for selecting it. However, Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren did offer explanations in later years.
According to Allen Tate’s explanation “a Fugitive was simply a poet, the wanderer, or even the wander Jew, the outcast, the man who carries the secret wisdom around the world.”13 The legend of such a person has been handed down for centuries. Poetically speaking that explanation makes a lot of sense, as there are poems by Percy Blysse Shelley and William Wordsworth about the Wandering Jew.
Robert Penn Warren, however, cited something that was written in the magazine’s first editorial. “We fly from nothing so much as the South of the magnolia.” He characterized the Poets as rebels, in other words, against the apologetic southern literature.14
The primary purpose of the magazine, however it came about the name, was in Tate’s words “The act of each individual poet trying to write the best poetry possible.”15
The poetic magazine ran from April 1922 to the spring of 1925 with Donald Davidson acting as co-editor with Ransom. There were lots of speculations as to why the magazine ended. Among them were these:
1. No one capable of functioning as editor was willing to devote the time required to serve in that capacity.
2. The four main writers no longer felt the urgent need for the journal, they had moved on.16
Whatever the reason the magazine folded, the four pillars-
Ransom, Davidson, Tate and Warren- did move on. An event of monumental proportion caught their attention in 1925 and thus, began the second leg of the alliance- The Agrarians.
The Agrarians
In 1925 the small community of Dayton became the center of national attention after John T. Scopes, a young science teacher, deliberately defied Tennessee law and taught evolution to his students. As Davidson and Ransom in amazement observed, the picture of the South presented by journalists covering the Scopes Trial, they were convinced that their section must be defended. The result was I’ll Take My Stand published in 1930.17
Twelve Southern men took up the cause and produced what many felt was a southern manifesto. By and large, though highly acclaimed by historians, Davidson would call it “the most misunderstood, unread book in American literature.”18
Joining the four pillars in their endeavor to defend the south were eight unknowns- John Gould Fletcher, Andrew Lytle, Frank Owsley, Lyle Lanier, John Donald Wade, Henry Blue Kline, Herman Clarence Nixon, and Stark Young. Each of the twelve writers took a different stance in defending their beloved south. Basically their argument was against industrialism, which they believed brought the downfall of southern society. Ransom, ever the leader, had particular thoughts about industrialism. He called it the opposite of agrarianism. In his mind agrarianism needed no explanation as it stood on its own merits. He tied it down to a belief “that agriculture, pursued with intelligence and leisure, is the model vocation, approached by other necessary tasks as much as possible. An agrarian society makes the culture of the soil the preeminent vocation, one which has preference in public policy and one that attracts the most people.”19
The writers put forth a few key points in the argument against industrialization or the Cult of Science:
1. Industrialism is not effective or enjoyable. Employment is insecure and the laborer does not get to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
2. Religion can not flourish in an industrial society because it gives an illusion of power over nature thus making industry a god.
3. Art, or the appreciation of it, decays as the public becomes disinterested in observation of nature as a leisurely activity.
4. Civility, meaning manners, conversation, hospitality, sympathy, family life, and romantic life, disappears as the curse of a strictly business class emerges.
5. Higher education becomes unnecessary as young people move into industrial jobs rather than pursuing humanities.
6. Social traditions become lost as the struggle to balance life in an industrial age contradicts our heritage.
7. Smaller numbers of people are producing food supply as the land is used to house factories.
8. Society is brainwashed into believing that it wants or needs products. Advertising is born due to overproduction, outrunning natural consumption.20
In some ways the manifesto was viewed as an attempt to fight the Civil War all over again. Some critics saw the literary effort as an anti-Union or anti-American piece of propaganda. It was as if the writers were blaming Reconstruction for the downfall of southern society. Racism reared its ugly head many times throughout the essays.
Sadly the attempt to put forth a more intelligent side to their beloved Southland went by and large unnoticed by the majority of America. To put things in perspective one only has to look at the time line. Prohibition, Women’s Rights and the Great Depression were during this time frame. Money was scarce. The family unit was changing. It could hardly be blamed on industrialism. To others, their efforts seemed shallow. These were all middle class white men who had never lived an agrarian life. Their point of view was rather tainted with rose colored glasses.
Clyde Wilson, a historian who is one of many to analyze the agrarian movement, refers to it as “The Road Not Taken.” He sheds light on the men who wrote the essays and how well thought out their arguments was. His reference to the Robert Frost poem would suggest that the South was presented two choices – to remain a largely agrarian society or to welcome industry into its midst. It would have been impossible to do both and once a decision was made there would be no going back. Perhaps that is what the Agrarians feared.
Today our society has similar issues- environmentalist vs. expansion. Same battle, different causes.
The South still seems to be made light of in today’s media. Our accents and quaint homespun sayings are the brunt of many jokes. And yet, if you listen close enough you’ll hear our words coming out of the mouths of others.
There are still poets around today to defend the southern way of life. They’re called singers. Examples of this would be Aaron Tippin’s “You’ve Got to Stand for Something”, Lynard Skynard’s “Sweet Home Alabama”, Alabama’s “My Home’s in Alabama” and “Song of the South”, Shenandoah’s “Sunday in the South” and Sawyer’s Brown’s “Dirt Road.”
The New Criticisms
By 1937, Ransom had outgrown his interest in the agrarian movement. As usual he gave himself completely to a new cause and very suddenly dropped an old one. His new enthusiasm was now literary criticism.21 Among those who pursued this with him were I. A. Richards, T. S. Eliot, Allen Tate, R. P. Blackmor, Yvor Winters, Cleanth Brooks and F. R. Leavis. He distanced himself from some of his old colleagues and friends, Davidson among them. It bothered Davidson to no end and as he confided in Allen Tate in 1938, “I am beginning to see myself as Ransom’s Captain Carpenter… Yet I tell myself that the long years of fellowship that have tied us together have made the alliance something that cannot be casually broken. It is unthinkable that the communion should cease, and it won’t”22 It did cease, nevertheless, between Ransom and Davidson after a relation that had persisted for a quarter-century, and it was restored only when Ransom returned to Vanderbilt to teach for a semester in 1961.23
Ransom went on to create a literary magazine at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio called the Kenyon Review. Tate created one at the University of the South called Sewanee Review. Warren also contributed to the new criticism movement.
So, what became of Donald Davidson? Some have likened him to a “memory keeper.” He went on to write textbooks for composition used in colleges across America. He also continued to write poetry and historical books. “Singing Billy” was based on a poem by Davidson that was set to music by composer Charles Faulkner Bryan of George Peabody College for Teachers. This later became a folk opera. While Ransom detached himself from his colleagues, Davidson assisted them in their literary endeavors.
In some ways, Davidson is reminiscent of the vagabond men that the character Montag meets in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. He tried to store up memories to share with future generations when they were ready to hear it. He spoke of the south in terms of history, the surroundings and the people who lived here. In many ways he was a mirror to the people.
Lee Smith, a southern writer, sums it up this way:
For a southerner, physical surroundings encompass much
more than a town or a region. Everybody has a very strong sense of
place but in the South that implies who you are and what your family
did. It’s not just literally the physical surroundings, what stuff looks like.
It’s a whole sense of the past.24
Just as Ransom served as a muse for poets, Davidson influenced historical writers and southern novelists. Among them were Russell Kirk and Erskine Caldwell.25
So what was it about the two men that brought them together and drove them apart. “In his own defense [Ransom] might say wryly that no natural law forced him to fight permanently under the southern banner. He saw himself as a man with an absolute sense of his own identity, he could assume a new tack without a crippling loss of psychic energy”26 while Davidson, on the other hand, was somewhat codependent in Ransom’s mind. He seemed to require “the consolations of community, or a cohesive, philosophically consonant group of true believers.”26
Celebrating Greatness
In 1956, the surviving Fugitives had a reunion in Nashville at Vanderbilt University. In 1980 Vanderbilt hosted a symposium honoring the Southern Agrarians on the fiftieth anniversary of the publication, I’ll Take My Stand. There were only three surviving contributors left- Robert Penn Warren, Andrew Lytle and Lyle Lanier.
Giles County has also done much to honor its native sons. In 1967 John Crowe Ransom was one of the headliners on Martin Methodist College’s Spring Arts Festival. He lectured and celebrated his birthday at a dinner held in his honor.27 A historical marker has also been placed on the south lawn of the Giles County Court house to commemorate Ransom and Davidson’s place in history.28
1 Tennessee: A Short History (second edition), Robert E. Corlew, The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1981.
2 Gentleman in a Dust Coat
3 Tennessee Writers, Thomas Daniel Young, The Tennessee Historical Commission, The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1981.
4 Selected letters of John Crowe Ransom, edited with an introduction by Thomas Daniel Young and George Core, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1985.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 The Southern Agrarians, Paul K. Conkin, The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1988.
8 Ibid.
9 Talking with Robert Penn Warren, edited by Floyd C. Watkins, John T. Hiers, Mary Louise Weaks, The University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1990.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.
13 Ibid.
14 Talking with Robert Penn Warren.
15 Ibid.
16 Tennessee Writers, Thomas Daniel Young, the Tennessee Historical Commission, The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1981.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 The Southern Agrarians, Paul K. Conkin, The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1988.
20 The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology, William L. Andrews general editor, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1998.
21 The Southern Agrarians, Paul K. Conkin, The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1988.
22 Selected Letters of John Crowe Ransom, edited by Thomas Daniel Young and George Core, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1985.
23 Ibid.
24 Growing up Southern
25 Ibid.
26 Selected Letters of John Crowe Ransom
26 Ibid.
27 The Pulaski Citizen, April 19, 1967; The Pulaski Citizen, April 26, 1967.
28 The Pulaski Citizen, October 22, 1996; The Pulaski Citizen, October 29, 1996.
This was published in the Giles County Historical Society Bulletin, July 2008. Volume XXXIIII, Pulaski, Tennessee.
