what is moonlight and magnolias tradition?

as in the play? the book?

it's about the Virginia social history - heroic southern. gallant-noble, educated, and dashing-ardently courting...

think of 'gone with the wind'.

Moonlight And Magnolia

Their life; in that leap; is what caused them to share no more life together... They will never grow old together, because they took what the God's gave them; their lives... I thought this was beautiful though... I have been to Aspen, Colorado USA twice in my life, and thought you were about to write about the Maroon Bells mountains they have there... I thought you were going to say the lovers turned into the mountains to stay together forever... A nice thought, perhaps?

Bluntly put, it's the idea that everything was just ducky in the South until that nasty War of Northern Agression came along. It's also considered literary school or movement (not just folklore/myth).