Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

. Literature, Principally Belletristic .
stance prose. In the past there have been some misleading statements regarding
this book, clearly by critics who did not read past the "Dedication"
and from that portion conclude that the whole thing is a satire on the
Trustees' government of Georgia. A True and Historical Narrative of
the Colony of Georgia, in America, From the First Settlement thereof .
. . . Together with . .. A Dedication to His Excellency General Oglethorpe
was composed by a group of malcontents among the planters of the
youngest province. Three of them-Dr. Patrick Tailfer, Hugh Anderson,
and David Douglas-signed their names followed by "and others" on the
title page of the book published by Peter Timothy in Charleston, South
Carolina, in 1741. The origins of the book are complex, ultimately deriving
from the conflicting military and utopian aims of the colony'S
backers in Great Britain. The Narrative is only one item in a two-sided
series, though for its delineation of colonial problems and superior literary
prose it is valuable. The later frequent southern lack of awe for
great names or constituted authority is represented in the dedication,
which is devastatingly satiric regarding Oglethorpe and the "laws" 'of the
Trustees. Disillusionment is the key-the potential paradise is but a
mismanaged or uncontrolled wilderness, and the fact that the inhabitants
are not allowed to import rum or Negroes and do not own their land in
fee simple has resulted in an inability to compete economically with
neighboring provinces. Irony and invective are the obvious qualities of
this protest against overseas government and against the character and
ability of one usually considered the epitome of benevolence and efficiency
and a principal founder of British America. The authors are forthright
probably because they believed themselves beyond the reach of punishment.
Their dedication to Oglethorpe is one of the most effectively written
satiric passages before the immediate pre-Revolutionary period. It
presents the old case of the difference between what things are and what
they ought to be.tOt
Southern colonial satire-from Smith's Generall Historie to the pamphlets
and verses and plays of Richard Bland and Thomas Burke and Robert
Munford-was a literary means of pure amusement, of safeguarding
public and provincial morality, and of presenting political fact and theory in
entertaining garb. It included the exaggerated tall tale and the use of rustic
or illiterate dialects, of the ribald and the cruel, which were to survive in
the writing of the region through Sut Lovingood and Mark Twain to Robert
Penn Warren and William Faulkner. The southerner frequently sought
to bring congruity out of incongruity, order out of chaos, liberty out of
tyranny, not by prayer or doctrinal sermons, but by showing how droll disproportion
really is.
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