Modern Southern Autobiography and Autobiographical Fiction

FAIN: FB-12554-75

Jerry E. Brown
Longwood University (Farmville, VA 23909-1800)

To study the relationships between the traditions of Southern autobiography and the modern autobiographical novel, with a view toward defining more completely the nature of American autobiography. Study will focus on a literature in which a close relationship between fiction and autobiography exists--apparent in writers from Thomas Wolfe and William Alexander Percy to Willie Morris and Walker Percy-- this study can establish the distinguishing traits of different kinds of autobiographical writings. Study should also establish the function and the generic range of the autobiography, and its placed in American literature.