Mark Twain: The Fate of HumorUniversity of Missouri Press, 2002 - 351 pages In Mark Twain: The Fate of Humor, James M. Cox pursues the development of Mark Twain's humor through all the forms it took from "The Jumping Frog" to The Mysterious Stranger. Instead of seeking the seriousness behind the humor, Cox concentrates upon the humor itself as the transfiguring power that converted all the "serious" issues and emotions of Mark Twain's life and time into narratives designed to evoke helpless laughter. In those sudden moments of pleasurable helplessness, we glimpse the great heart of a writer who imagined freedom in the slave society of his youth and discovered slavery in the free country of his old age.For this edition of Mark Twain: The Fate of Humor, the author has written a new introduction showing how and why Mark Twain remains a central figure in American life; he has also appended an essay disclosing why Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will always be a hard book to take. |
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action American audience Autobiography becomes begin burlesque career censor chapters character Civil clichés comic Connecticut Yankee conscience conventional criticism defined discloses discovered discovery dream Driscoll edition ending episode experience exposed fact failure fiction finally freedom genteel Hank Henry Nash Smith Howells Huck Huck's Huckleberry Finn humorist Ibid identity illusion imagination impersonation indulgent Innocents Abroad invention irony Jim's Joan of Arc joke Jumping Frog language letters literary little Satan Mark Twain Mark Twain's humor means Mississippi Morgan Mysterious Stranger myth narrative narrator Nevada never novel Olivia Olivia Langdon Clemens Paine passage past Pauper perspective pilot play pleasure plot pseudonym Pudd'nhead Wilson reader reality repressed reverence river Roughing Samuel Clemens Satan satiric Sawyer seems sentiment serious sketch slavery society story style tall tale tion Tom Sawyer Abroad Tom's truth twins vernacular Virginia City Voto writing wrote