SOURCE: Parks, Edd Winfield. “The Intent of the Ante-Bellum Southern Humorists.” Mississippi Quarterly 13, no. 4 (fall 1960): 163-68.

In the following essay, Parks provides an overview of the major figures in the Southwestern humor tradition.

There is abundant justification for describing the work of the Southern humorists as “spontaneous, hilarious pencillings.” No doubt most of these widely scattered, highly varied writers simply sat down and described a realistic incident or concocted a tall tale, with no particular concern about why they were writing as they did. But a few men felt the need for a rough-and-ready aesthetic that would justify a new way of writing.

Some men never doubted either its originality or its validity. By 1845 William T. Porter was convinced that his weekly Spirit of the Times had become “the nucleus of a new order of literary talent … who have subsequently distinguished themselves in this novel and original walk...