Nothing Abstract: Investigations in the American Literary Imagination

247 Pages·2001·1.1 MB·English

by  Tom Quirk

Nothing Abstract:
Investigations in the
American Literary
Imagination
TOM QUIRK
University of Missouri Press
Nothing Abstract
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Nothing
Abstract
INVESTIGATIONS IN
THE AMERICAN
LITERARY IMAGINATION
F
T O M Q U I R K
University of Missouri Press
Columbia and London
Copyright © 2001 by
The Curators of the University of Missouri
University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201
Printed and bound in the United States of America
All rights reserved
5 4 3 2 1 05 04 03 02 01
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Quirk, Tom, 1946–
Nothing abstract : investigations in the American literary imagination / Tom Quirk.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8262-1364-2 (alk. paper)
1. American literature—History and criticism. 2. Imagination. I. Title.
PS121 .Q57 2001
810.9´384—dc21
2001041581
V∞™This paper meets the requirements of the
American National Standard for Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984.
Designer: Stephanie Foley
Typesetter: The Composing Room of Michigan, Inc.
Printer and binder: The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group
Typefaces: Sabon and Gill Sans Light
For credits for previously published material, see p.ix.
FOR MY CHILDREN
Laura, 23
Ann, 13
James, 5
A GENERATION
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C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments ix
I. Introduction 1
The Proof
II. Sources,Influences,and Intertexts 13
III. Authors,Intentions,and Texts 32
The Pudding
IV. What If Poe’s Humorous Tales Were Funny? Poe’s “X-ing a
Paragrab”and Twain’s “Journalism in Tennessee” 53
V. Hawthorne’s Last Tales and “The Custom-House” 64
VI. The Judge Dragged to the Bar:Melville,Shaw,and the
Webster Murder Trial 81
VII. Mark Twain in His Short Works 97
VIII. The Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce 115
IX. Realism,the “Real,”and the Poet of Reality:Some
Reflections on American Realists and the Poetry of
Wallace Stevens 134
X. In the Shallow Light of the Present:The Moral Geography
of Death Comes for the Archbishop 156
XI. Fitzgerald and Cather:The Great Gatsby 176
vii
viii Nothing Abstract
XII. A Source for “Where Are You Going,Where Have You
Been?” 191
XIII. Justice on the Reservation:Tony Hillerman’s Novels and
the Conflict between Federal and Tribal Jurisdiction 199
A Postscript
XIV. The Trying Out of Genetic Inquiry 213
A Checklist of Publications 221
Index 227
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
Most of these essays have been published previously. I wish to thank the
following journals and publishers for permission to reprint these pieces.
“Authors, Intentions, and Texts,” Essays in Arts and Sciences28 (October
1999): 1–15. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the American Humor
Studies Association for permission to reprint, in slightly modified form,
“What If Poe’s Humorous Tales Were Funny?: Poe’s ‘X-ing a Paragrab’ and
Twain’s ‘Journalism in Tennessee,’” Studies in American Humor n.s. 3,
no. 2 (1995): 36–48. “Sources, Influences, and Intertexts,” Resources for
American Literary Study 21, no. 2 (1995): 65–82. “‘In the Shallow Light
of the Present’: The Moral Geography of Death Comes for the Archbish-
op,” Essays in Arts and Sciences 24 (October 1995): 1–20. “The Judge
Dragged to the Bar: Lemuel Shaw, Herman Melville, and the Webster Mur-
der Case,” Melville Society Extracts no. 84 (February 1991): 1–8. “Real-
ism, the ‘Real,’ and the Poet of Reality: Some Reflections on American Re-
alists and the Poetry of Wallace Stevens,” American Literary Realism 21,
no. 2 (winter 1989): 34–53. “Justice on the Reservation: Hillerman’s Nov-
els and the Conflict Between Federal and Tribal Jurisdiction,” The Arm-
Chair Detective 18, no. 4 (fall 1985): 364–70. “Hawthorne’s Last Tales
and ‘The Custom House,’” ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance
30, no. 4 (4th quarter, 1984): 183–94, (c) Board of Regents of Washington
State University. “Cather and Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby,” American
Literature54, no. 4 (December 1982): 576–91. “A Source for ‘Where Are
You Going? Where Have You Been?’” Studies in Short Fiction 18, no. 4
(fall 1981): 413–19. “The Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce,” introduction
to Ambrose Bierce, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians and Other Stories, ed.
Tom Quirk, New York: Penguin Publishers, 2000. “Mark Twain in His
Short Works,” introduction to Mark Twain, Selected Tales, Essays, Speech-
es, and Sketches of Mark Twain,ed. Tom Quirk, New York: Penguin Pub-
lishers, 1994.
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