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One of my favorite works, hence my "location."

It's all about the conflict between individual and community identity, I suppose. Southern writers of the 19th Century channeled, as you say, their energies into defending the region's peculiar institution, which, around 1830 was no longer Jefferson's "necessary evil" but instead, Calhoun's notion of "positive good."

W.J. Cash's "savage ideal"--the hypersensitivity to criticism/stifling of dissent--made it tough for someone in the mold of Twain to write in the South. I'm afraid H.L. Mencken was quite right when, in 1920, he opined (of the South): "a poet down there is as rare as an oboe-player, a dry-point etcher, a metaphysician..." Perhaps it took this "calling out" by a northerner for southern men of letters to get it together. That is what Tate, R.P. Warren, Ransom, Young, and the Nashville Agrarians would say, at least.

Great to discuss Southern literature/history with someone who really knows their stuff.

In some areas, we have produced a more tolerant atmosphere for open, instead of the more common oblique, criticism/self-reflection since Twain's days but even today, it's difficult to adequately sort out the feelings Southerners have for the South, especially since the criticism of outsiders is largely one-dimensional even when it's accurate. I think we carry the weight of history, tragic results, and an odd resentment coupled with love of our region in a way no other region does. It makes us unique but it also tends to produce either greatness or a myopic stubbornness that is harmful. I think that's why even today too many have to leave or feel the need to leave in order to make great art. But ironically that freedom also tends to makes Southerners living in exile long for home and there's something about the South that calls its children home like a Siren's call even today.

In truth, I don't think we can ever leave it even if we physically leave. The mindset whether it's of the conflicted variety or the stubborn variety, and often it's both, stays with us.

But Mencken's criticism is still largely correct when looking at the whole of the South. There are still too many places where a modern-day Twain would not be accepted although the poets, the oboe players/unique ones as well as the blunt ones exist in virtually every spot, too many still stay in hiding. I think that may be why older great southern literature has largely employed magical realism and the gothic -- it allows writers to say what should be said to those who are open to hearing it while other readers can simply enjoy the story aspect or even the pretty/colorful language.

Oh and thanks for mentioning Cash his work is something I definitely need to read.