| Description |
1 online resource (viii, 207 pages) |
| Contents |
Introduction: "The World Is Grown Too Incredulous"; 1. The Emergence of Tall Narrative in American Writing; 2. Mark Twain's Development as a Literary Yarn Spinner; 3. Joyous Heresy: Travelling with the Innocent Abroad; 4. The Tall Tale as Theme and Structure in Roughing It; 5. The River as Yarn: "Old Times on the Mississippi"; 6. The Contest for Narrative Authority in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; 7. The Disembodied Yarn Spinner and the Reader of Huckleberry Finn; Conclusion: The Eclipse of Humor; Notes; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R; S; T; W; Y |
| Summary |
Mark Twain and the Art of the Tall Tale is a study of a peculiar American comic strategy and its role in Mark Twain's fiction. Focusing on the writer's experiments with narrative structure, Wonham describes how Twain manipulated conventional approaches to reading and writing by engaging his audience in a series of rhetorical games--the rules of which he adapted from the conventions of tall tale in American oral and written traditions. Wonham goes on to show how Twain's appropriation of the genre developed through the course of his career, from The Innocents Abroad to Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and |
| Analysis |
English fiction |
|
United States |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-207) and index |
| Notes |
English |
|
Print version record |
| Subject |
Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 -- Technique
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Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 |
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Tall tales -- United States -- History and criticism
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Oral tradition -- United States.
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Narration (Rhetoric)
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Fiction -- Technique.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
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Fiction -- Technique
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Narration (Rhetoric)
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Oral tradition
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Tall tales
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Technique
|
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United States
|
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books
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Criticism, interpretation, etc.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| LC no. |
92014291 |
| ISBN |
1423736923 |
|
9781423736929 |
|
1601298994 |
|
9781601298997 |
|
9780195078015 |
|
0195078012 |
|
128044262X |
|
9781280442629 |
|
0195360192 |
|
9780195360196 |
|
