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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... Race 169 ANN M. RYAN Mark Twain in Large and Small The Infinite and the Infinitesimal in Twain's Late Writing 191 TOM QUIRK Mark Twain Studies and the Myth of Metaphor 203 JOHN BIRD " Who Killed Mark Twain ? " Long Live Samuel Clemens ...
... race and gender and class have become more pronounced. As we move further away from the times within which Clemens lived and wrote, we are better able to gain needed perspective on the myriad influences that shaped him as a man and ...
... race . To assist in framing his discussion , Smith reviews Tom Quirk's Coming to Grips with Huckleberry Finn as well as his own earlier publication " Huck , Jim , and American Racial Discourse " and Shelley Fisher Fishkin's Was Huck 10 ...
... Racial Discourse " and Shelley Fisher Fishkin's Was Huck Black ? Twain's use of dialect , Smith argues , provides ... race . The text is not to blame for this deification , Ryan argues ; instead we need to examine America's penchant ...
... race and have come to see the debate over racism in his works as the only issue worthy of attention or scorn; all tend to think that he emerged fully formed amid Mississippi sandbars and small towns constrained by solid family and ...
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 |