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4 Belles Lettres in a New Country By the standards of more established cultural jurisdictions, the Alabama country had already in effect, however improbably, become the province of belles lettres in the rather traditional sense of the term when a minor territorial functionary, Lewis Sewall, elected for the publication of mock-epic satire as a way of commemorating the misadventures of Colonel James Caller and his ragtag militia band at the infamous Battle of Burnt Corn. Further, as noted, as part of a climate of print production fostered in early cultural development along the Gulf, the new state would likewise shortly boast not only a compendious law and order volume but also, barely a decade after accession to statehood, a backwoods incognito's attempt at a grand literary romance of the forest, styled after such contemporaries as Cooper and Simms, and again focused on the Creek War of 1813-14. And, not surprisingly, as will be seen, particularly during the late antebellum era, it would be to Mobile, the old city by the bay, that a selfconscious literary culture would return to make something of a permanent home. It was there that the state's most influential man of antebellum letters, Alexander Beaufort Meek, would spend the last two decades of his life, itself a period that would see publication of his epic poem, The Red Eagle, his book of prose historical sketches, RomanticPassages in Southwestern History, and his collection of lyrics entitled Songs and Poems ofthe South. It was there that a young novelist, Augusta Jane Evans, with such early productions as Inez: A Tale ofthe 47 Alamo and, most notably, Beulah, would launch herself upon one of the most visible and lucrative writing careers of the century. And, as important for present purposes, it was also there that Octavia Walton Le Vert would establish herself in the same years as Alabama's most prominent and well-known female belletrist and keeper of one of the South's most famous literary salons.' Meanwhile, however, emanations of the belletristic spirit were beginning to take shape in a number of other locations in the new country as well; and, not surprisingly, some of the most important first flowerings were to be witnessed in the new center of culture at Tuscaloosa, since 1825 the state capital, and since 1831 also the seat of the nascent university. Most prominently, these included the first book of poetry published in Alabama, William R. Smith's College Musings; or, Twigs from Parnassus, and A. B. Meek's short-lived but important journal of regional literature and culture, The Southron. Not surprisingly, both were productions of the 1830S; and thereby they surely must be taken as expressions of the confidence and pride of the era in the steady advance of culture that had taken place in the early decades of statehood. Still, as consciously literary productions attempting to stake themselves off into the proper realm of belles lettres, both carefully distanced themselves from the rumbustious boom-and-bust spirit of the era, the rowdy, on-the-make social energy, so to speak, of the flush times that made them possible. For, like most other male figures attaining authorial status in Alabama during the early period, whether in politics, law, journalism, commerce, agriculture, or any other forms of public activity, neither Smith nor Meek would have cared to be known as a professional literary person; nor would they have wished to see their productions carry the taint of commerce in any direct financial sense or as regards any kind of tawdry political involvement. (To be sure, The Southron had to be marketed to subscribers; but that dingy matter was left to the publisher. Certainly, it was also to express partisanship as far as the advancement of Southern letters was concerned; but that would have been considered hardly a polemical position .) Rather, they would have preferred to be seen as men of affairs who simply devoted part of their energies to the pursuit of letters as a contribution to the general advancement of culture. To this degree they would conform to images of cultural authority resembling those established by such figures of national stature to the North as Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or, in the immediate region, William Gilmore Simms, in which literary endeavor was in some way overtly connected with a larger career of public service. Certainly, they eschewed the gadfly professionalism, for instance, of their Southern compatriot Edgar A. Poe; if anything, indeed...

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