Constructing Mark Twain: New Directions in ScholarshipMichael J. Kiskis, Laura E. Skandera-Trombley University of Missouri Press, 2001 - 252 Seiten The thirteen essays in this collection combine to offer a complex and deeply nuanced picture of Samuel Clemens. With the purpose of straying from the usual notions of Clemens (most notably the Clemens/Twain split that has ruled Twain scholarship for over thirty years), the editors have assembled contributions from a wide range of Twain scholars. As a whole, the collection argues that it is time we approach Clemens not as a shadow behind the literary persona but as a complex and intricate creator of stories, a creator who is deeply embedded in the political events of his time and who used a mix of literary, social, and personal experience to fuel the movements of his pen. The essays illuminate Clemens's connections with people and events not usually given the spotlight and introduce us to Clemens as a man deeply embroiled in the process of making literary gold out of everyday experiences. From Clemens's wonderings on race and identity to his looking to family and domesticity as defining experiences, from musings on the language that Clemens used so effectively to consideration of the images and processes of composition, these essays challenge long-held notions of why Clemens was so successful and so influential a writer. While that search itself is not new, the varied approaches within this collection highlight markedly inventive ways of reading the life and work of Samuel Clemens. |
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... wrote of his mother , I can say of mine : " Technically speaking , she had no career ; but she had a character , and it was of a fine and striking and lovable sort . " Michael J. Kiskis ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi Contents Introduction 1 LAURA E ...
... wrote, "likes water."2 As we have moved through the twentieth century, critics have, in fact, performed the literary equivalent of the miracle at Cana as they have pronounced Clemens's proletarian water among the finest of elite Ameri ...
... wrote, we are better able to gain needed perspective on the myriad influences that shaped him as a man and writer. Such has been the case in work that has begun to unpack the generative power of Clemens's literary and personal ...
... wrote about it , most notably in " Three Thousand Years among the Microbes . " Quirk observes that in his examination of the infinite and infinitesimal , " Twain extended the reach of his fundamentally democratic imagination outward to ...
... wrote for the Christian Union in 1885 in response to a specific, terrible situation.4 While reading this relatively unknown material, consider how many nineteenth-century American fathers would think this intelligently or write this ...
Inhalt
13 | |
28 | |
To his preferred friends he revealed his true character | 50 |
Mark Twains Mechanical Marvels | 72 |
Steamboats Cocaine and Paper Money | 87 |
Mark Twain Isabel Lyon and the Talking Cure | 101 |
The Minstrel and the Detective | 122 |
Huck Jim and the BlackandWhite Fallacy | 139 |
Black Genes and White Lies | 169 |
Mark Twain in Large and Small | 191 |
Who Killed Mark Twain? Long Live Samuel Clemens | 218 |
CONTRIBUTORS | 239 |