New Essays on 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'

These essays on Huckleberry Finn will enrich our understanding of the novel's topical impact.

Louis J. Budd (Edited by)

9780521318365, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 October 1985

148 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.1 cm, 0.193 kg

The essays in this volume represent a wide range of approaches to one of the most popular of all American novels. Michael Bell re-examines the crucial issue of romanticism versus realism in the book. Janet McKay discusses the linguistic subtleties of the novel, showing the social implications inherent in Twain's brilliant use of the vernacular. Lee Mitchell draws on post-structuralist theories to question Huck's own assumption that words themselves can represent the social world. Steven Mailloux combines sociopolitical perspectives and the methods of contemporary 'reader-response' analysis to identify how humour is generated in Huckleberry Finn and to enrich our understanding of the novel's topical impact.

1. Introduction Louis J. Budd
2. Mark Twain, 'Realism' and Huckleberry Finn Michael Davitt Bell
3. 'An art so high': style in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Janet Holmgren McKay
4. 'Nobody but our gang warn't around': the authority of language in Huckleberry Finn Lee Clark Mitchell
5. Reading Huckleberry Finn: the rhetoric of performed ideology Steven Mailloux
Notes on contributors
Selected bibliography.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK]