![]() ![]() In making his exceptionalist claim for American storytelling, Twain was, I think, right about something. ![]() A form that appeared centuries after the rise of written and printed forms of storytelling, and within a modern, industrial context. ![]() For whatever reason, in the 19th century, America reinvented, in a unique new way, an old, primarily oral form of storytelling. I’m not sure if Twain’s claim is strictly true even within the narrow scope of his comparison to English and French storytelling traditions, but there’s something to what he was getting at in the essay. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling the comic story and the witty story upon the matter. The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind–the humorous. This entry is part 2 of 10 in the series NarrativiumĪdam Gurri pointed me to this 1895 Mark Twain essay, How to Tell a Story, which makes the interesting claim that the humorous story, dependent for its effect on the manner of telling rather than the matter, is an American invention: ![]()
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