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Канон «плантаторской» традиции в романе Д.П. Кеннеди «Суоллоу Барн»
The contradiction between the agrarian South and the industrial North influenced literary activity in the US Southern states before and after the Civil War (1861 – 1865), and it had a great impact on literature of the plantation tradition. The goals of the article is to outline the characteristics of the plantation literary tradition, consider main periods of its development, and analyze J.P. Kennedy’s «Swallow Barn, or A Sojourn in the Old Dominion» (1932) which is thought to be a novel that set a trend in plantation literature. The theoretical aspect of the study is based on works of Western and Russian scholars: J.W.Blassingame, E. Gros, L.H. MacKethan, C.Van Woodward, L.P. Bashmakova, A.V. Volodina, V.V. Pereyashking V.V. etc. Plantation tradition, created mainly by white writers, blossomed in 1830 – 1860s. The typical features of plantation novels are as follows: depiction of life in the antebellum South as a paradise with masters and slaves living in harmony; system of characters that included noble cavaliers, Southern belles, trusty «Sambo» type slaves, and faithful mammies; southern interpretation of regional history, economy, and life style. «The Valley of Shenandoah, or Memoirs of Graysons», (1942) by G. Tucker, «Swallow Barn» by J. P. Kennedy, «Aunt Phillis’s Cabin» (1852) by M.H. Eastman, 1818 – 1887), «The Sword and the Distaff» (1852) by W.G. Simms, «The Planter’s Northern Bride» (1854) by C.L. Hentz – these are the typical examples of planation tradition. J.P. Kennedy’s «Swallow Barn», is a significant antebellum plantation novel. The action in it takes place in Virginia, the narrator being a New Yorker Mark Littleton, the author’s alter ego, who comes to his relatives’ estate on holiday. The genre of «Swallow Barn» represents a mix of adventure and historical novel as well as travelogue. The characters fit into the scheme of the plantation tradition. They have something in common with noble knights and dames from Walter Scott novels, but sometimes the author uses irony, and all cavaliers and belles look comic as if they are a parody on the heroes and heroes from Scott’s texts. Being a Northerner and publicly opposing slavery, Kennedy in «Swallow Barn», on the one hand, expressed an idea that slavery was a disaster that should be abolished, but, on the other hand, he recognized the fact that that freedom would not make slaves happy. That ambiguity was strange for a person who during the Civil War fought in the Union Arm, but it was typical for a planation novelist. «Swallow Barn» may be defined as «an architext» which shaped the canon of the plantation tradition and southern consciousness. It influenced the creative work of many Southern writers.