Calvinist Humor In American Literature

Author : Michael Dunne
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0807132608
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Calvinist Humor in American Literature written by Michael Dunne and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though the phrase "Calvinist humor" may seem to be an oxymoron, Michael Dunne, in highly original and unfailingly interesting readings of major American fiction writers, uncovers and traces two recurrent strands of Calvinist humor descending from Puritan times far into the twentieth century. Calvinist doctrine views mankind as fallen, apt to engage in any number of imperfect behaviors. Calvinist humor, Dunne explains, consists in the perception of this imperfection. When we perceive that only others are imperfect, we participate in the form of Calvinist humor preferred by William Bradford and Nathanael West. When we perceive that others are imperfect, as we all are, we participate in the form preferred by Mark Twain and William Faulkner, for example. Either by noting their characters' inferiority or by observing ways in which we are all far from perfect, Dunne observes, American writers have found much to laugh about and many occasions for Calvinist humor. The two strains of Calvinist humor are alike in making the faults of others more important than their virtues. They differ in terms of what we might think of as the writer/perceiver's disposition: his or her willingness to recognize the same faults in him- or herself. In addition to Bradford, West, Twain and Faulkner, Dunne discovers Calvinist humor in the works of Flannery O'Connor, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemingway, and many others. For these authors, the world -- and thus their fiction -- is populated with flawed creatures. Even after belief in orthodox Calvinism diminished in the twentieth century, Dunne discovers, American writers continued to mine these veins, irrespective of the authors' religious affiliations -- or lack of them. Dunne notes that even when these writers fail to accept the Calvinist view wholeheartedly, they still have a tendency to see some version of Calvinism as more attractive than an optimistic, idealistic view of life. With an eye for the telling detail and a wry humor of his own, Dunne clearly demonstrates that the fundamental Calvinist assumption -- that human beings are fallen from some putatively better state -- has had a surprising, lingering presence in American literature.

Author : Michael Dunne
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807135365
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Calvinist Humor in American Literature written by Michael Dunne and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2007-12 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though the phrase "Calvinist humor" may seem to be an oxymoron, Michael Dunne, in highly original and unfailingly interesting readings of major American fiction writers, uncovers and traces two recurrent strands of Calvinist humor descending from Puritan times far into the twentieth century. Calvinist doctrine views mankind as fallen, apt to engage in any number of imperfect behaviors. Calvinist humor, Dunne explains, consists in the perception of this imperfection. When we perceive that only others are imperfect, we participate in the form of Calvinist humor preferred by William Bradford and Nathanael West. When we perceive that others are imperfect, as we all are, we participate in the form preferred by Mark Twain and William Faulkner, for example. Either by noting their characters' inferiority or by observing ways in which we are all far from perfect, Dunne observes, American writers have found much to laugh about and many occasions for Calvinist humor. The two strains of Calvinist humor are alike in making the faults of others more important than their virtues. They differ in terms of what we might think of as the writer/perceiver's disposition: his or her willingness to recognize the same faults in him- or herself. In addition to Bradford, West, Twain and Faulkner, Dunne discovers Calvinist humor in the works of Flannery O'Connor, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemingway, and many others. For these authors, the world -- and thus their fiction -- is populated with flawed creatures. Even after belief in orthodox Calvinism diminished in the twentieth century, Dunne discovers, American writers continued to mine these veins, irrespective of the authors' religious affiliations -- or lack of them. Dunne notes that even when these writers fail to accept the Calvinist view wholeheartedly, they still have a tendency to see some version of Calvinism as more attractive than an optimistic, idealistic view of life. With an eye for the telling detail and a wry humor of his own, Dunne clearly demonstrates that the fundamental Calvinist assumption -- that human beings are fallen from some putatively better state -- has had a surprising, lingering presence in American literature.

Author : Bryce Traister
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107101883
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book American Literature and the New Puritan Studies written by Bryce Traister and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-07 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reconsiders the role of seventeenth-century Puritanism in the creation of the United States and its consequent cultural and literary histories.

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Studies in American Humor written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Gregg Camfield
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0195356594
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Necessary Madness written by Gregg Camfield and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-09-25 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this rich, exciting new book, Gregg Camfield explores nineteenth-century American humor from the perspective of gender and domestic ideology, challenging recent theory asserting a broad gulf between men's and women's humor during the period and contributing vital new insights to the study of humor in general. Capturing in part I a vision of humor unique to the era, Camfield examines the period's faith in what was called "amiable humor," a genial and supple comic mode whose non- aggression makes it resist easy assimilation to theories stressing humor's basis in hostility, negation, rage, and other combative or displaced energies. Seeking to illuminate this distinct comedy, Camfield probes a related, central cultural strand--the domesticity ideal--that so often is a subject of this humor, carefully tracking contact between the two discourses and identifying their common social and intellectual roots. Turning next to four literary case-studies powerfully revealing of this contact, Camfield in part II pairs male and female humorists--Washington Irving and Fanny Fern; Harriet Beecher Stowe and Herman Melville; Mark Twain and Marietta Holley; and George Washington Harris and Mary Wilkins Freeman--not only to demonstrate the way these influential writers approach domesticity with genial humor, but also to support his claim that gender difference does not always correlate to differences in viewpoint and practice within this common style. Where many argue nineteenth- century women's humor constitutes a genre unto itself, Camfield finds that like women, men filtered reaction to the constraints and opportunities of home life through genial comedy, and that women, like their male counterparts, wrote humor marked by extravagance, expansion, caricature, fantasy, and posturing. Broadening out to an intriguing consideration of humor theory in part III, Camfield draws on recent work in psychology, culture studies, neo-pragmatist philosophy, and neuroscience to model a compelling alternative view of humor capable of negotiating both the complexities of nineteenth-century American humor and the comic art of periods before and since. Students and scholars of humor, nineteenth-century American literature and culture, and women's writing, will find Necessary Madness to be a provocative, essential achievement.

Author : Gretchen Martin
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1443864366
Total Pages : 125 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Twain’s Omissions written by Gretchen Martin and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-07-18 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark Twain utilized a unique literary device throughout his fiction by routinely omitting or suspending crucial information in terms of plot, character portraits, descriptive events, chronology, and other aspects from his texts. Twain often introduces characters with very few details regarding their personal histories; while, other information is withheld in terms of the narrative’s chronology or not addressed at all, thus producing gaps in the narrative. For example, Twain does not provide any significant information about the mothers of two of his most well-known characters, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, nor does he provide detailed information regarding Jim’s personal history, such as how and when he became Miss Watson’s property or specific information regarding the personal history of his relationship with his wife. There are also often substantial chronological gaps in the pace Twain utilizes. There are omissions of several years at a time in Pudd’nhead Wilson and No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger, which also create gaps in the plot, particularly regarding information Twain refers to that occurred during the chronological gap, such as an account of the wedding between Morgan and Sandy in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Identifying and exploring gaps in the context of Twain’s fiction yields, as these essays demonstrate, overlooked or under-explored information, ironically generated out of these narrative omissions. The six essays included in this collection explore these issues in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger, Pudd’nhead Wilson, “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg,” and Twain’s masterpiece, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The authors draw from a wide range of theoretical and interpretive perspectives, ranging from reader-response theory to historical and culture studies.

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.08/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Studies in American Humor written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 198 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Studies in American Culture written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 196 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Flannery O'Connor Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Southern Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: