Continuities in American Humor

FAIN: FR-10344-78

Clyde G. Wade
Missouri University of Science and Technology (Rolla, MO 65409-0001)

This study will consist of three parts: (l) To study "Rip Van Winkle" as an archetypal story in American humor; (2) to study the exploitation by American writers of man's creatural ties with the lower animals for purposes of humor(focusing upon the tales of the Old Southwest humorists and works by Irving, Twain, Harris, Caldwell, Faulkner, Eliot, Thurber, Ellison and Agee); and, (3) to study the literature that explores the tie between man and God.