Description
Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1967. Mark Twain's literary criticism is a significant branch of his writing that is relatively less explored and appreciated than his other writing. Sydney Krause analyzes the full range of Twain's criticism, much of which has lain neglected in notebooks, letters, marginalia, and autobiographical dictations. This body of work demonstrates that, in addition to being an acute critic given to close reading, Twain thought enough of his criticism to present much of it in an enveloping literary form. In his early criticism Twain used the mask of an ignorant fool (or Muggins), while in his later criticism he used the mask of a world-weary malcontent (or Grumbler). The resulting cross fire from extremes of innocence and experience proved effective against a wide range of literary targets. The Muggins dealt mainly with theater, journalism, oratory, and popular poetry; the grumbler with such writers as Goldsmith, Cooper, Scott, and Hare. Much of this criticism was an out
Table of ContentsAbbreviations
Introduction
Part I: Twain's Early Criticism: The Critic as Muggins
Chapter 1. Mark Twain and the Critical Fool
Chapter 2. Theatrical Criticism: A Dude Before Nudes
Chapter 3. Extravagant Romanticism: Playing Dumb
Chapter 4. Of Journalism and Art: A Mad and a Frustrated Fool
Chapter 5. Of Poetry and Sunday-School Tales: Anger and the Fool
Part II: Twain's Later Criticism: The Critic as Grumbelr
Chapter 6. The Grumbling Mark Twain
Chapter 7. Boys, Girls, and Goldsmith: Sense vs. Sensibility
Chapter 8. Cooper's Literary Offenses: Mark Twain in Wonderland
Chapter 9. "The Sir Walter Disease": A Sick South and Sickened Mark Twain
Chapter 10. Bret Harte: The Grumbling Realist's Friend and Foe
Part III: Twain's Appreciative Criticism: From History into Life
Chapter 11. Macaulay: Living History by Antitheses
Chapter 12. Howells and the Poetics of Appreciation
Chapter 13. Howe and Zola: The Opposing Truth
Chapter 14. Wilbrandt: The Tragic Conquest of Evil
Bibliography
Index
