The unique contribution of this book is the focus upon the testimony of Twain's audience as a unique "reading community"--how his fiction intersected with their real lives, how he impacted American ...publishing, literacy, and educational reform, and how Americans loved the theatricality and humor that Twain brought to their lives.
Trained as a printer when still a boy, and thrilled throughout his life by the automation of printing and the headlong expansion of American publishing, Mark Twain wrote about the consequences of ...this revolution for culture and for personal identity.Printer's Devilis the first book to explore these themes in some of Mark Twain's best-known literary works, and in his most daring speculations-on American society, the modern condition, and the nature of the self. Playfully and anxiously, Mark Twain often thought about typeset words and published images as powerful forces-for political and moral change, personal riches and ruin, and epistemological turmoil. In his later years, Mark Twain wrote about the printing press as a center of metaphysical power, a force that could alter the fabric of reality. Studying these themes in Mark Twain's writings, Bruce Michelson also provides a fascinating overview of technological changes that transformed the American printing and publishing industries during Twain's lifetime, changes that opened new possibilities for content, for speed of production, for the size and diversity of a potential audience, and for international fame. The story of Mark Twain's life and art, amid this media revolution, is a story with powerful implications for our own time, as we ride another wave of radical change: for printed texts, authors, truth, and consciousness.
This consequential book takes a hard, systematic look at the depiction of blacks, whites, and race relations in Mark Twain's classic novel, raising questions about its canonical status in American ...literature. Huckleberry Finn , one of the most widely taught novels in American literature, has long been the subject of ongoing debates over issues ranging from immorality to racism. Here, Elaine Mensh and Harry Mensh enter the debate with a careful and thoughtful examination of racial messages imbedded in the tale of Huck and Jim. Using as a gauge for analysis the historical record left by both slaves and slaveholders, the Menshes compare Twain's depiction with historical reality, attempting to determine where the book either undermines or upholds traditional racial attitudes. Surveying the opinions of fellow critics, they challenge the current consensus that Huckleberry Finn fosters rapport between blacks and whites, arguing that the book does not subvert ingrained beliefs about race, and demonstrating that the argument over black-white relations in the novel is also an argument over non-fictional racial relations and conflicting perceptions of racial harmony. Reading the novel in its historical context, the Menshes conclude that Twain, in the character of Huck, never questions the institution of slavery, and even supports it in both thought and action. In response to student and parent challenges to the inclusion of the book in literature classes, they suggest that it should remain in school libraries but not be required reading. Of importance to scholars of Mark Twain and American literature, African American cultural studies, or anyone interested in issues of literature and race, this book adds a strong voice to the long-ranging debate over Huckleberry Finn .
Mark Twain Railton, Stephen
2008, 2008., 2004/01/01, 2003, 2008-04-15, Letnik:
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eBook
This book introduces Mark Twain through close readings of his seven major works, including Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Connecticut Yankee and Pudd’nhead Wilson. Introduces Mark Twain through close ...readings of his seven major works, including Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Connecticut Yankee and Pudd’nhead Wilson. Investigates the tension between the real-life person, Samuel Clemens, and the fictional person, Mark Twain. Provides an original reading of Twain’s obsession with performance and popularity. Analyses the significance of Twain’s books for American culture and identity. Illustrated with images from first editions of Twain’s works. A short appendix directs readers to the author’s award-winning website on ‘Mark Twain in his Times’.
<!CDATAInspired by the foreign policy entanglements of recent years, William V. Spanos offers a dramatic interpretation of Twain's classic A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, offering a ...heretofore unexplored assessment of American exceptionalism and the place of a global America in the American imaginary. Spanos insists that Twain identifies with his protagonist, particularly in his defining use of the spectacle, and thus with an American exceptionalism that uncannily anticipates the George W. Bush administration's normalization of the state of exception and the imperial policy of preemptive war, unilateral regime change, and shock and awe tactics. Equally stimulating is Spanos's thoroughly original ontology of American exceptionalism and imperialism and his tracing of these forces through a chronological examination of Twain studies and criticism over the past century.
As an examination of an overlooked text and a critical history of American studies from its origins in the nation-oriented Myth and Symbol school of the Cold War era into its present globalizing or transnationalizing perspective, Shock and Awe will appeal to a broad audience of American literature scholars and beyond.>
Victor Doyno offers a new, accessible, and innovative approach to America's favorite novel. Doyno presents new material from the revised manuscript ofHuckleberry Finnand also draws on Samuel ...Clemens's unpublished family journal, his correspondence, and his concerns about the lack of international copyright law.
