Southern frontier humor : new approaches / edited by Ed Piacentino.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Piacentino, Edward J., 1945- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American wit and humor--Southwest, Old--History and criticism.

American wit and humor.

American literature--Southwest, Old--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--Southern States--History and criticism.

Southern States.

Southwest, Old--Humor.

Southwest, Old.

Southern States--Humor.

Southwest, Old--In literature.

Southern States--In literature.

Genre:

Humor.

Physical Description:

vii, 237 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2013]

Summary:

Since its inception in the early 1830s, southern frontier humor (also known as the humor of the Old Southwest) has had enduring appeal. The onset of the new millennium precipitated an impressive rejuvenation of scholarly interest. Southern Frontier Humor represents the next step in this revival, providing a series of essays with fresh perspectives and contexts. First, the book shows the importance of Henry Junius Nott, a virtually unknown and forgotten writer who mined many of the principal subjects, themes, tropes, and character types associated with southern frontier humor, followed by an essay addressing how this humor genre and its ideological impact helped to stimulate a national cultural revolution. Several essays focus on the genre's legacy to the post-Civil War era, exploring intersections between southern frontier humor and southern local color writers-Joel Chandler Harris, Charles W. Chesnutt, and Sherwood Bonner. Mark Twain's African American dialect piece "A True Story," though employing some of the conventions of southern frontier humor, is reexamined as a transitional text, showing his shift to broader concerns, particularly in race portraiture. Essays also examine the evolution of the trickster from the Jack Tales to Hooper's Simon Suggs to similar mountebanks in novels of John Kennedy Toole, Mark Childress, and Clyde Edgerton and transnational contexts, the latter exploring parallels between southern frontier humor and the Jamaican Anansi tales. Finally, the genre is situated contextually, using contemporary critical discourses, which are applied to G. W. Harris's Sut Lovingood and to various frontier hunting stories. Book jacket.

Contents:

Henry Junius Nott and the Roots of Southern Frontier Humor / Ed Piacentino Piacentino, Ed 18

Hysterical Power Frontier Humor and Genres of Cultural Conquest / Jennifer A. Hughes Hughes, Jennifer A. 42

"Bawn in a Brier-patch" and Frontier Bred Joel Chandler Harris's Debt to the Humor of the Old South / Gretchen Martin Martin, Gretchen 60

From Swamp Doctor to Conjure Woman Exploring "Science" and Race in Nineteenth-Century America / Bruce Blansett Blansett, Bruce 86

Sherwood Bonner and the Postbellum Legacy of Southwestern Humor / Kathryn McKee McKee, Kathryn 104

"I wa' n't bawn in de mash to be fool' by trash!" Mark Twain's "A True Story" and the Culmination of Southern Frontier Humor / Tracy Wuster Wuster, Tracy 131

Morphing Once Again From Jack to Simon Suggs to Aunt Lucille / Winifred Morgan Morgan, Winifred 154

Anancy's Web/Sut's Stratagems Humor, Race, and Trickery in Jamaica and the Old Southwest / John Lowe Lowe, John 171

Postmodern Humor ante Litteram Self-Reflexivity, Incongruity, and Dialect in George Washington Harris's Yarns Spun / Mark S. Graybill Graybill, Mark S. 193

The Real Big Kill Authenticity, Ecology, and Narrative in Southern Frontier Humor / James E. Bishop Bishop, James E. 210.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Southern frontier humor

ISBN:

9781617037689

1617037680

9781617037696

1617037699

OCLC:

815383677