During his decades-long career as a respected and influential man of letters, he also wrote an extensive collection of critical essays. In that article, “A Southern Mode of the Imagination" mode of imagination," argues that the revival of Southern letters occurred because of a change in Southerners' way of thinking, a change from what he called the extroverted "rhetorical mode" of tall tales and politics, to the introspective and heretofore primarily Northern; “dialectical mode.” From his unique position as both a critic of the Renaissance and one of its avant-gardes, Tate posits that the antebellum Southern mind lacked the self-awareness necessary to produce great writings because it was entirely occupied with defending slavery against Northern attacks on the Renaissance 'peculiar institution.' The Southern mind turned outward in response to those attacks, trying to justify itself with one foot “on the neck of a Negro slave”; that is, Southerners were rhetorical in defense of the indefensible and unconquerable La defensive position absorbed any potential for great literature even well after the cause was lost: Southern literature was virtually nonexistent before the publication of the first issue of The Fugitive in 1922. According to Tate's theory, this occurred only when the South suffered a crisis. change in its “mode of imagination” that was capable of producing writers like those of the Renaissance Tate theorizes that this change occurred in part because the South ended its self-imposed isolation with the advent of World War I and. “he saw right.” it was the first time since 1830 that the Yankees were not responsible for everything.” The mental energies of the South were no longer entirely absorbed in resisting the Northerners... half of the paper...pouring without regard for the his audience It might be admitted, therefore, that Wolfe is perhaps not the example that Tate would use to support his theory. Tate could hardly object, however, to the application of the rhetorical/dialectical model to his own writing. Works Cited Tate, Allen "A Southern Mode of the Imagination." In Essays from Four Decades Chicago: Swallow Press, 1968 (third edition) Wilmington, De: ISI Press, 1999._____. In The Hudson Review 1, number 3 (1948): 344-361.Wolfe, Thomas “Boom Town.” American Mercury 64, number 125. Reprinted in The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, edited by Francis E. Skipp New York: Scribner's, 1987._____ “The Child by Tiger.” Saturday Evening Post 210, issue 11. Reprinted in The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, edited by Francis E. Skipp New York: Scribner's, 1987.