James Whitcomb Riley Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Harold K. Bush, Jr.

Critical Essay by Harold K. Bush, Jr.

SOURCE: Bush, Jr., Harold K. “‘Absorbing’ the Character: James Whitcomb Riley and Mark Twain's Theory of Performance.” American Literary Realism 31, no. 3 (spring 1999): 31-47.

In the following essay, Bush explains Mark Twain's theory of performance, comments on the novelist's respect for Riley's performed poetry, and posits that both authors saw the absence of any critical space between poet and persona as responsible for the success of Riley's sentimental poems.

Much recent work on Mark Twain, including all or parts of influential volumes by Susan Gillman, Randall Knoper, and Richard Lowry, has been preoccupied with Twain's theories of performance.¹ Oddly, none of these fine books has much to say about James Whitcomb Riley (not to be confused with Twain's friend James H. Riley of South African diamond fame); in fact, Riley's name is not even listed in two of the three indexes. It is interesting, however, that Lowry's study,...
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