Mark Twain's Ethical Realism: The Aesthetics of Race, Class, and Gender Tapa dura - 1997

xii+174 pages with index. Royal octavo (9 1/4" x 6 1/4") bound in original publisher's blue cloth with silver lettering to spine. First edition review copy. Mark Twain's interest in the relationship between ethics and aesthetics provides the basis for this groundbreaking work of scholarship. Beginning with Twain's observation that a writer of realism becomes "like another conscience" for readers, Joe fulton asks, "What is literary realism?" "In what ways is realism ethical?" Taking a hard look at recent criticism of Mark Twain and American realism, Fulton explores the skepticism associated with terns such as realism that has led scholars to ignore Twain's view of how a writer creates believable fictions. Recent critics have also attacked the claim that realistic writing is ethically oriented and ignored Twain's belief that because realism demands the authentic depiction of individuals living on the "other" side of race, class, or gender boundaries, it honors their subjectivity. Realism introduces a… Leer más