It began in the 1930s in a powerful and elegant literature arising from a seemingly improbable place, the rural, agrarian South. This literary flowering, a proliferation of southern letters, is called the Southern Renaissance.

Although the definitive history of the southern literary renaissance has yet to be written, its leading figure, without question, was William Faulkner.

Helping to define and describe this startling literary phenomenon and Faulkner's place in it are papers of eight noted scholars included in this collection. Brooks, Rubin, King, Minter, Watkins, Samway, Blackburn, and Spencer, one of the authors whose fiction is identified with the movement, focus their papers upon the philosophical and critical aspects of the Southern Renaissance.