Constructing Mark Twain: New Directions in ScholarshipMichael J. Kiskis, Laura E. Skandera-Trombley University of Missouri Press, 2001 - 252 pages 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. |
From inside the book
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... Clemens - Mark Twain has been and remains one of its hot com- modities . 1 Over the past eighty years there has been an avalanche of scholar- ship about Clemens's life and work . Indeed , if one wishes to become familiar with the body ...
... Clemens's proletarian water among the finest of elite Ameri- can wines. Still greater attention will soon be aimed at Clemens: the one hundredth anniversary of his death is now in sight (a mere nine years from this writing). That ...
... Clemens's fecundity as a writer remains at the center of our work. The sheer volume of his writing urges us to recalibrate his value as a contributor to American life and culture. He was, in all, a supremely confi- dent author who used ...
... Clemens's character, a strength that assigned him an essential poise as events and ideas swirled around him. His was ... Clemens would, we believe, agree that R. W. B. Lewis had it just right in his preface toThe Amer- ican Adam: [A] ...
... Clemens generated as he composed his fiction or as he re-created his life grew out of a sustained effort to place ... Clemens's writings and his life offer seemingly inexhaustible resources for such prospecting. He provides an array ...
Contents
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 |