David E. E. Sloane – författare

Originally published in 1979, Mark Twain as a Literary Comedian looks at how Mark Twain addressed social issues through humour. The Southwest provided the subject for much of Twain’s writing, but the roots of his style lay principally in north-eastern humour. In the mid-1800s the northern United States underwent social changes that reflected in the writing of the literary humourists like Twain. Sloane argues that he used humour to describe conditions in the emerging middle-class urban experience and express his American vision and that Twain’s views on the human, social, and political conditions, presented through his fictional characters, elevated the use of literary humour in the American novel.

Originally published in 1979, Mark Twain as a Literary Comedian looks at how Mark Twain addressed social issues through humour. The Southwest provided the subject for much of Twain’s writing, but the roots of his style lay principally in north-eastern humour. In the mid-1800s the northern United States underwent social changes that reflected in the writing of the literary humourists like Twain. Sloane argues that he used humour to describe conditions in the emerging middle-class urban experience and express his American vision and that Twain’s views on the human, social, and political conditions, presented through his fictional characters, elevated the use of literary humour in the American novel.

The Literary Humour of the Urban Northeast brings together works by such writers as Mark Twain, P.T. Barnum, Marietta Holley, and the literary comedians Artemus Ward and Josh Billings. The northern writers chronicled a fast-moving world, dominated by government and business. In this anthology, David Sloane recovers satiric writings of the north-eastern humourists of the nineteenth century, a literary school that was formed in the crucible of the daily newspaper. Written to appeal to a newly urbanized audience experiencing the impact of the Industrial Revolution, these humorous articles, sketches and ballads responded to a rapidly changing nation still clinging to rural preconceptions but at the same time beginning to know a sharper more precarious kind of existence.

The Literary Humour of the Urban Northeast brings together works by such writers as Mark Twain, P.T. Barnum, Marietta Holley, and the literary comedians Artemus Ward and Josh Billings. The northern writers chronicled a fast-moving world, dominated by government and business. In this anthology, David Sloane recovers satiric writings of the north-eastern humourists of the nineteenth century, a literary school that was formed in the crucible of the daily newspaper. Written to appeal to a newly urbanized audience experiencing the impact of the Industrial Revolution, these humorous articles, sketches and ballads responded to a rapidly changing nation still clinging to rural preconceptions but at the same time beginning to know a sharper more precarious kind of existence.

Identifies the directions and themes that will make up the field of American humour studies in the 21st century and offers undestanding of what is increasingly recognized as a defining medium of American democracy - humour. The study of American humour as a cultural denominator is changing from the limited review of southwestern vernacular writers leading up to Mark Twain into a broad field with feminist, popular-cultural, ethnic and international components. Tracing American life through its comic artifacts results in an incredibly colourful patchwork quilt of cultural dynamism, a dynamic in no way decreasing as television challenges print media and as issues of egalitarian ethics bring about transformations in the role of women, ethnic standing, criminal justice and sexual mores. Multicultural and diverse in terms of modern and classic figures, these essays deal with subjects ranging from Beavis and Butt-head and Richard Pryor to Edith Wharton and Edgar Allan Poe, from ""old maids"" and ""wily widders"" to the ""comic Texan"" and ""funny Republican"". ""American Humour"", this anthology places American humour in social and historic context and anticipates further developments in the field.

Originally published in 1993. The purpose of this volume is to lay out documents which give an estimate of Mark Twain as a humourist in both historical scope and in the analysis of modern scholars. The emphasis in this collection is on how Twain developed from a contemporary humourist among many others of his generation into a major comic writer and American spokesman and, in several more recent essays by younger Twain scholars, the outcomes of that development late in his career. The essays determine how the humor takes on meaning and importance and how the humor works in a number of ways in the literary canon and even in the persona of Mark Twain.