Sentimental Twain: Samuel Clemens in the Maze of Moral Philosophy - Couverture rigide

Camfield, Gregg

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0812232852 ISBN 13 : 9780812232851

Editeur : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994

Synopsis

In Sentimental Twain, Gregg Camfield examines the major and minor works of Mark Twain to redraw the boundaries between sentimentalism and realism in the second half of the nineteenth century. Beginning by taking the reactions to the question of race in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a test case, Camfield reveals that sentimental ethics persist, though buried, in American culture, and he argues that Americans' ambivalent responses to sentimentalism explain some of the continuing controversy surrounding Mark Twain's work. Specifically, he contends, insofar as the liberal agenda remains substantially sentimental--especially when dealing with issues of race--today's readers of Twain participate in the same dialectic between sentimental compassion and realistic cynicism that Twain himself confronted.

Camfield then traces the cultural development of this ethical dialectic and follows Mark Twain's reactions to it, showing that Twain was a closet sentimentalist whose public attacks on sentimentalism veiled a deep longing for a more compassionate world. Throughout, Sentimental Twain is grounded in a discussion of philosophical contexts of nineteenth-century American sentimental literature, paying particular attention to the Scottish Common Sense philosophers but looking forward to the Pragmatism of William James.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Gregg Camfield is Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts at the University of California, Merced.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Date d'édition: 1994
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0812232852
• ISBN 13: 9780812232851
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 296
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Pays-Bas