American Humor A Study of the National Character

by Rourke, Constance; Marcus, Greil

• ISBN13: 9781590170793
• ISBN10: 1590170792
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-02-29
• Publisher: NYRB Classics

Summary

Stepping out of the darkness, the American emerges upon the stage of history as a new character, as puzzling to himself as to others.American Humor, Constance Rourke's pioneering "study of the national character," singles out the archetypal figures of the Yankee peddler, the backwoodsman, and the blackface minstrel to illuminate the fundamental role of popular culture in fashioning a distinctive American sensibility. A memorable performance in its own right,American Humorcrackles with the jibes and jokes of generations while presenting a striking picture of a vagabond nation in perpetual self-pursuit. Davy Crockett and Henry James, Jim Crow and Emily Dickinson rub shoulders in a work that inspired such later critics as Pauline Kael and Lester Bangs and which still has much to say about the America of Bob Dylan and Thomas Pynchon, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Author Biography

Constance Rourke (1885-1941) was a historian, anthropologist, and critic who revolutionized the study of American culture. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, and educated at Vassar and the Sorbonne, she spent most of her life in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her influential studies of American life include Trumpets of Jubilee (1927), Troupers of the Gold Coast (1928), and biographies of Davy Crockett (1928), Audubon (1936), and Charles Sheeler: Artist in the American Tradition (1938). Her most famous work remains American Humor: A Study of the National Character, recognized as a classic from its publication in 1931. Rourke devoted her later life to “living research,” exploring regional culture, from Shaker furniture to African-American song, and Western folk tales. She died in 1941, after falling on an icy porch.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
Acknowledgments	9	(2)
Foreword	11	(4)
I Corn Cobs Twist Your Hair	15	(22)
II The Gamecock of the Wilderness	37	(33)
III That Long-Tail'd Blue	70	(21)
IV Strollers	91	(24)
V The Comic Poet	115	(18)
VI I Hear America Singing	133	(30)
VII Facing West from California's Shores	163	(23)
VIII The American	186	(23)
IX Round Up	209	(28)
Bibliographical Note	237	(8)
Index	245