Maria
Marotti applies a unique mixture of strains of contemporary literary
theory to the body of posthumously published works so far published
in the Mark Twain Papers series, examining these late, frequently
incomplete or abandoned, and usually experimental works in theoretical
light. Marotti's approach is a text-centered one, semiotic and structuralist
in inspiration, and she brings a fresh Continental perspective to
bear on an author usually treated biographically, thematically,
psychologically. Her concern is with generic definition, and this
guides her shaping of the book into four chapters on burlesque,
fantasy and dream voyage, romance, and myth. She advances with success
the finding, novel in Twain scholarship, that Mark Twain really
was experimenting with aspects of fiction ordinarily thought of
today as modern or postmodern, and Twain scholars will see that
simply being able to consider his various experiments in the terms
posed by these theories is itself grounds for changing or at least
for reevaluating how they have looked at these writings in the past.
Marotti further demonstrates the effectiveness of her terms and
terminology for picking up the story of Twain's roots in folklore
and oral storytelling, and for grounding these well-known stories
in the entirety of his literary development.
Interest
in Twain is at an all-time high. This penetrating, authoritative,
and lively book has the capacity to appeal to an audience far beyond
the narrow range of literary theorists. Marotti's contribution,
in addition to the presentation of the Twain Papers as a corpus
deserving of the kind of attention that has been directed to Twain's
published work, is the promotion of recognition of his as a bold
experimenter in literary form, an aspect of his achievement that
all too often has been neglected.
Maria
Ornella Marotti is on the faculty of the University of
California at Santa Barbara. She is the co-editor of Identita
e Scrittura, a study of American autobiography published in
Italy.
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