{"product_id":"was-huck-black-mark-twain-and-african-american-voices-paperback-1","title":"Was Huck Black?: Mark Twain and African-American Voices - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eShelley Fisher Fishkin\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePublished in 1884, \u003cem\u003eHuck Finn\u003c\/em\u003e has become one of the most widely taught novels in American curricula. But where did \u003cem\u003eHuckleberry Finn\u003c\/em\u003e come from, and what made it so distinctive? Shelley Fisher Fishkin suggests that in \u003cem\u003eHuckleberry Finn\u003c\/em\u003e, more than in any other work, Mark Twain let African-American voices, language, and rhetorical traditions play a major role in the creation of his art.\u003cbr\u003e In \u003cem\u003eWas Huck Black?\u003c\/em\u003e, Fishkin combines close readings of published and unpublished writing by Twain with intensive biographical and historical research and insights gleaned from linguistics, literary theory, and folklore to shed new light on the role African-American speech played in the genesis of \u003cem\u003eHuckleberry Finn\u003c\/em\u003e. Given that book's importance in American culture, her analysis illuminates, as well, how the voices of African-Americans have shaped our sense of what is distinctively \"American\" about American literature.\u003cbr\u003e Fishkin shows that Mark Twain was surrounded, throughout his life, by richly talented African-American speakers whose rhetorical gifts Twain admired candidly and profusely. A black child named Jimmy whom Twain called \"the most artless, sociable and exhaustless talker I ever came across\" helped Twain understand the potential of a vernacular narrator in the years before he began writing \u003cem\u003eHuckleberry Finn\u003c\/em\u003e, and served as a model for the voice with which Twain would transform American literature. A slave named Jerry whom Twain referred to as an \"impudent and satirical and delightful young black man\" taught Twain about \"signifying\"--satire in an African-American vein--when Twain was a teenager (later Twain would recall that he thought him \"the greatest man in the United States\" at the time). Other African-American voices left their mark on Twain's imagination as well--but their role in the creation of his art has never been recognized. \u003cem\u003eWas Huck Black?\u003c\/em\u003e adds a new dimension to current debates over multiculturalism and the canon.\u003cbr\u003e American literary historians have told a largely segregated story: white writers come from white literary ancestors, black writers from black ones. The truth is more complicated and more interesting. While African-American culture shaped \u003cem\u003eHuckleberry Finn\u003c\/em\u003e, that novel, in turn, helped shape African-American writing in the twentieth century. As Ralph Ellison commented in an interview with Fishkin, Twain \"made it possible for many of us to find our own voices.\" \u003cbr\u003e \u003cem\u003eWas Huck Black?\u003c\/em\u003e dramatizes the crucial role of black voices in Twain's art, and takes the first steps beyond traditional cultural boundaries to unveil an American literary heritage that is infinitely richer and more complex than we had thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this book I will suggest that Twain himself and the critics have ignored or obscured the African-American roots of his art. Critics, for the most part, have confined their studies of the relationship between Twain; 's work and African-American traditions to examinations of his depiction of African-American folk beliefs or to analyses of the dialects spoken by his black characters.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShelley Fisher Fishkin\u003c\/strong\u003e is Professor of American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin, and author of the award-winning book \u003cem\u003eFrom Fact to Fiction: Journalism and Imaginative Writing in America\u003c\/em\u003e. Her essays and reviews on American literature, American Studies, and issues of race and gender have appeared in publications including \u003cem\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eAmerican Literature\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eAmerican Literary History\u003c\/em\u003e, and the \u003cem\u003eJournal of American History\u003c\/em\u003e. Professor Fishkin, who has lectured on her work in England, Israel, Europe, Mexico, and across the United States, was a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, 1992-1993.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 288\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.7 x 8.5 x 5.58 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 05, 1994\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52703946572083,"sku":"9780195089141","price":75.38,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/qNfFnMn5cg9780195089141_c258c973-7a67-468c-b791-21b26ec4398c.webp?v=1763344720","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/was-huck-black-mark-twain-and-african-american-voices-paperback-1","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}