Mark Twain's Animals and the Evolution of Animal Depiction in American Humor

FAIN: FR-10110-78

S.G. Tucker Arnold, Jr
Florida International University Board of Trustees (Miami, FL 33199-2516)

To carry out an extended study of animal portraiture throughout our literature, goal being to develop a paper and a course on this theme. The qualities which may be called uniquely American in our humor, appear with particular clarity in the writings focused on animals. Animal human comparisons serve many of our humorists when satirizing the folly of human beings. Yet certain of our best humorists, notably Mark Twain, take their animal portraits beyond satire, identify with their animals fully and characterize the birds and beasts with all the comprehensiveness of human characters. In addition to Twain, Faulkner, Walt Kelly (creator of Pogo), and George Booth's cat-and-dog New Yorker works will be studied.