‘The Subtleties of the American Joke’: Mark Twain versus Europe

Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F19194951%3A_____%2F24%3AN0000007" target="_blank" >RIV/19194951:_____/24:N0000007 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/handle/11222.digilib/digilib.81081" target="_blank" >https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/handle/11222.digilib/digilib.81081</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/BSE2024-1-10" target="_blank" >10.5817/BSE2024-1-10</a>

Result language
angličtina
Original language name
‘The Subtleties of the American Joke’: Mark Twain versus Europe
Original language description
“Guides can not master the subtleties of the American joke,” Mark Twain writes after he finishes a bout of stymying European efforts to teach culture to him and his comrades in The Innocents Abroad (293). The joke is double-barreled: Europeans do not realize the joke is on them for being stuck in their past and because Americans are not as dull-witted as they seem, but the joke is also of course on clueless traveling Americans, thrashing about Europe for cultural self-improvement. However, and mostly overlooked in previous analyses, there really is a “subtlety” to that multi-layered term “the American joke.” Acknowledging earlier socio-historical analyses of Twain’s confrontation between new and old worlds, as well as criticism problematizing the idea of authenticity in travel or implicating his book in Western imperialism, this paper instead explores via the lens of Menippean satire Twain’s complex narrative construction of his “joke”, which ultimately blends humor and horror.
Czech name
—
Czech description
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Type
J<sub>SC</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database
CEP classification
—
OECD FORD branch
60204 - General literature studies

Publication year
2024
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

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