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
Results 1-5 of 19
... believe that the trade of critic , in literature , music , and the drama , is the most degraded of all trades , and that it has no real value — certainly no large value .... However , let it go . It is the will of God that we must have ...
... believe, agree that R. W. B. Lewis had it just right in his preface toThe Amer- ican Adam: [A] culture achieves identity not so much through the ascendancy of one particular set of convictions as through the emergence of its peculiar ...
... believe the essays selected here provide the qualities Hill deemed essential and in sum represent a generation's work in Twain studies . The collection opens with two essays that place Samuel Clemens - Mark Twain immediately within a ...
... believe it . God rest her sweet spirit ! ( AU , 252 ) Ultimately , Twain's work recounts the struggle of the human heart to find a place in this world , to find peace , to find a place to lie comfortably content with our mortality . To ...
... believe that Sam Clemens, in his real life and in his activi- ties as Mark Twain, American author-commentator, helped shape the newly emerging, more humane American attitudes toward children. For example, his literary decision to use ...
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 |