Frivolity to Consumption: Or, Southern Womanhood in Antebellum Literature (original) (raw)

The Old South died over one hundred years ago on the battlefields of the Civil War. It is, however, only dead-not forgotten. The Lost Cause, if showing signs of wear, still maintains its place in American mythology. Essentially, the Lost Cause consists of a vision of a vanished agrarian society dominated by large plantation owners. Many sub-myths form the legend of the Old South, especially the cults of chivalry and womanhood and the myth of the happy darkey.1 William R. Taylor, in his analysis of the Old South, suggests that the cavalier image presented by southerners as an antidote to Yankee materialism was not solely a southern creation. Rather, both northerners and southerners developed this legend in antebellum literature. Thus,