Southeastern NEWS

                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Public Information Office
                                           publicinfo@selu.edu
                                           SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
                                           504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
    Date: 5/29/98                                 
      Contact:                           Christina Chapple   5

Editors: Photos accompany release -- Please note local interest
LOUISIANA LITERARY LEGACY IS TOPIC OF TRAVELING EXHIBIT AT SLU
     HAMMOND -- Since the earliest times, Louisiana has inspired literary efforts of both its
citizens and its visitors. A new traveling exhibit by the Louisiana State Museum and the State
Library of Louisiana entitled Literary Louisiana chronicles the lives and work of famous 19th
and 20th century authors whose writings have shaped the world's view of Louisiana and her
people.
     Locally, Literary Louisiana will be on display from June 1-28 at Southeastern Louisiana
University's Sims Memorial Library. The display is sponsored by Southeastern's Clark Hall
Gallery.
     Comprised of more than 50 historic photos of authors and places related to their lives and
writings, the exhibit explores four major periods in Louisiana's literary life. The first section,
Antebellum Louisiana, covers the early part of the 19th century when Louisiana literature was
dominated by French Creoles. Much of the writing of the time was done in French and
published
locally in small editions. One notable literary first during this period was the 1845 publication
in
New Orleans of Les Cenelles, the first anthology of African-American verse issued in
America.
     during the Postbellum Period (1870-1920), Louisiana literature began attaining national
prominence. As there were no longer literary centers or publishers in the South, Louisiana
writers had to rely on Northern publishers. "Local color" fiction was in vogue and Louisiana's
exotic mix of places and people provided plenty of material for writers. Kate Chopin and
Lafcadio Hearn are among the authors profiled in this section of the exhibit.
     From 1920-1950, a period known as the Southern Renaissance, the South dominated
American literary activity. From New Orleans's French Quarter (called "Greenwich Village
South") to the stately Melrose Plantation of Natchitoches Parish to the offices of The Southern
Review in Baton Rouge, Louisiana writers established themselves at the forefront of this 
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LITERARY LOUISIANA -- Add One
movement. The Renaissance gave rise to some of the best known writers to be associated with
Louisiana, including Lyle Saxon, Robert Penn Warren, Frances Parkinson Keyes and
Tennessee
Williams. The exhibit includes a reproduction of the jacket cover for the first edition of
Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
     The exhibit's final section focuses on works written from 1950 to the present, writings
that both reflect the growth of changing society and draw on the traditions of the past. Walker
Percy's books with Southern settings and universal commentaries of the condition of modern
human existence, and Anne Rice's spiritually-symbolic tales of outcasts are among some of
the
most popular writings associated with Louisiana. Authors James Lee Burke, Shirley Ann Grau
and John Kennedy Toole are profiled in the exhibit's final section.
     Literary Louisiana is a collaborative effort of the Louisiana State Museum and the State
Library of Louisiana. Additional materials for the exhibit were provided by the Louisiana
State
University Special Collections Library and the Historic New Orleans Collection.
                                 - SLU -
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