Acting naturally: Mark Twain in the culture of performance

Abstract

The phenomenon of performance is central to Mark Twain's writing and persona, but Twain's performative aspects have usually been dismissed as theatrical and discounted as low-brow burlesque. This book takes Twain's theatricality seriously and shows how Twain's work both echoes and engages the social and cultural problems embodied in 19th-century popular entertainments. Knoper draws on theatre history, theories of and bodily expression, psychology and physiology, scientific accounts of spiritualism, and commercial spectacles to demonstrate Twain's use of acting and the natural in his creative explorations. The book aims to enlarge our understanding of Mark Twain, the artist and the man, and also provides a window into a culture whose entertainments registered the sexual, racial, economic and scientific forces that where transforming it.

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