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Achilles and the Tortoise: Mark Twain's Fictions by Clark Griffith Hardcover

Mischief Books
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Item specifics

Condition
Very Good
A book that does not look new and has been read but is in excellent condition. No obvious damage to the cover, with the dust jacket (if applicable) included for hard covers. No missing or damaged pages, no creases or tears, and no underlining/highlighting of text or writing in the margins. May be very minimal identifying marks on the inside cover. Very minimal wear and tear. See the seller’s listing for full details and description of any imperfections. See all condition definitionsopens in a new window or tab
Seller Notes
“Book looks great, aside from some ghosting/indentions from where the previous owner's name was ...
Subject Area
Literary Criticism
Book Title
ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE: MARK TWAIN'S FICTIONS
Personalized
No
Features
1st Edition
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States
Subject
General, American / General
ISBN
9780817310394
Publication Name
Achilles and the Tortoise : Mark Twain's Fictions
Publisher
University of Alabama Press
Item Length
9 in
Publication Year
2000
Type
Textbook
Format
Trade Paperback
Language
English
Item Height
0.9 in
Author
Clark Griffith
Item Weight
16 Oz
Item Width
6 in
Number of Pages
296 Pages
Category

About this product

Product Identifiers

Publisher
University of Alabama Press
ISBN-10
0817310398
ISBN-13
9780817310394
eBay Product ID (ePID)
1648173

Product Key Features

Number of Pages
296 Pages
Language
English
Publication Name
Achilles and the Tortoise : Mark Twain's Fictions
Publication Year
2000
Subject
General, American / General
Type
Textbook
Subject Area
Literary Criticism
Author
Clark Griffith
Format
Trade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height
0.9 in
Item Weight
16 Oz
Item Length
9 in
Item Width
6 in

Additional Product Features

Edition Number
2
Intended Audience
Scholarly & Professional
Dewey Edition
21
Reviews
"Clark Griffith's Achilles and the Tortoise is effortlessly witty yet built upon long cogitation with meticulous carpentry, fitting and refitting together the intricate sections of his argument. It is quite deliberately individualistic and polemical yet draws upon awesomely wide reading to support its judgments. With deceptive simplicity yet, eventually, multilayered sophistication it keeps asking: Why is Mark Twain 'funny'? It culminates with a dazzling analysis of all three of the Mysterious Stranger fables, but the entire book conducts a challenging, original, and bracing experience." -Louis Budd, Duke University
Dewey Decimal
818/.409
Synopsis
Covering the entire body of Mark Twain's fiction, Clark Griffith in Achilles and the Tortoise answers two questions: How did Mark Twain write? And why is he funny? Griffith defines and demonstrates Mark Twain's poetics and, in doing so, reveals Twain's ability to create and sustain human laughter. Through a close reading of the fictionsshort and long, early and lateGriffith contends that Mark Twain's strength lay not in comedy or in satire or (as the 19th century understood the term) even in the practice of humor. Rather his genius lay in the joke, specifically the "sick joke." For all his finesse and seeming variety, Twain tells the same joke, with its single cast of doomed and damned characters, its single dead-end conclusion, over and over endlessly. As he attempted to attain the comic resolution and comically transfigured characters he yearned for, Twain forever played, for Griffith, the role of the Achilles of Zeno's Paradox. Like the tortoise that Achilles cannot overtake in Zeno's tale, the richness of comic life forever remained outside Twain's grasp. The last third of Griffith's study draws parallels between Mark Twain and Herman Melville. Although the two authors never met and seem not to have read each other's works, they labored under the sense of what, in Moby-Dick, Ishmael calls "a vast practical joke . . . at nobody's expense but [one's] own." The laughter occasioned by this cosmic conspiracy shapes the career of Huckleberry Finn fully as much as it does Ishmael's voyage. Out of the laughter are generated the respective obsessions of Captain Ahab and Bartleby, of Pudd'nhead Wilson and Hadleyburg. Reduced at last to a dry mock, the laughter is the prevailing tone of both Billy Budd and The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts., Covering the entire body of Mark Twain's fiction, Clark Griffith in Achilles and the Tortoise answers two questions: How did Mark Twain write? And why is he funny? Griffith defines and demonstrates Mark Twain's poetics and, in doing so, reveals Twain's ability to create and sustain human laughter. Through a close reading of the fictions-short and long, early and late-Griffith contends that Mark Twain's strength lay not in comedy or in satire or (as the 19th century understood the term) even in the practice of humor. Rather his genius lay in the joke, specifically the "sick joke." For all his finesse and seeming variety, Twain tells the same joke, with its single cast of doomed and damned characters, its single dead-end conclusion, over and over endlessly. As he attempted to attain the comic resolution and comically transfigured characters he yearned for, Twain forever played, for Griffith, the role of the Achilles of Zeno's Paradox. Like the tortoise that Achilles cannot overtake in Zeno's tale, the richness of comic life forever remained outside Twain's grasp. The last third of Griffith's study draws parallels between Mark Twain and Herman Melville. Although the two authors never met and seem not to have read each other's works, they labored under the sense of what, in Moby-Dick, Ishmael calls "a vast practical joke . . . at nobody's expense but one's] own." The laughter occasioned by this cosmic conspiracy shapes the career of Huckleberry Finn fully as much as it does Ishmael's voyage. Out of the laughter are generated the respective obsessions of Captain Ahab and Bartleby, of Pudd'nhead Wilson and Hadleyburg. Reduced at last to a dry mock, the laughter is the prevailing tone of both Billy Budd and The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts., Covering the entire body of Mark Twain's fiction, Clark Griffith in Achilles and the Tortoise answers two questions: How did Mark Twain write? And why is he funny? Griffith defines and demonstrates Mark Twain's poetics and, in doing so, reveals Twain's ability to create and sustain human laughter. Through a close reading of the fictions-short and long, early and late-Griffith contends that Mark Twain's strength lay not in comedy or in satire or (as the 19th century understood the term) even in the practice of humor. Rather his genius lay in the joke, specifically the sick joke. For all his finesse and seeming variety, Twain tells the same joke, with its single cast of doomed and damned characters, its single dead-end conclusion, over and over endlessly. As he attempted to attain the comic resolution and comically transfigured characters he yearned for, Twain forever played, for Griffith, the role of the Achilles of Zeno's Paradox. Like the tortoise that Achilles cannot overtake in Zeno's tale, the richness of comic life forever remained outside Twain's grasp. The last third of Griffith's study draws parallels between Mark Twain and Herman Melville. Although the two authors never met and seem not to have read each other's works, they labored under the sense of what, in Moby-Dick, Ishmael calls a vast practical joke . . . at nobody's expense but one's] own. The laughter occasioned by this cosmic conspiracy shapes the career of Huckleberry Finn fully as much as it does Ishmael's voyage. Out of the laughter are generated the respective obsessions of Captain Ahab and Bartleby, of Pudd'nhead Wilson and Hadleyburg. Reduced at last to a dry mock, the laughter is the prevailing tone of both Billy Budd and The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts., Covering the entire body of Mark Twain's fiction, Clark Griffith in Achilles and the Tortoise answers two questions: How did Mark Twain write? And why is he funny? Griffith defines and demonstrates Mark Twain's poetics and, in doing so, reveals Twain's ability to create and sustain human laughter.

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