The Tall Tale in American Folklore and Literature

Download or read book The Tall Tale in American Folklore and Literature written by Carolyn Schmidt Brown and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To Carolyn Brown's mind, the tall tale is not necessarily an account of the adventures of a larger-than-life hero, nor is it just a humorous first-person narrative exaggerated to outlandish proportions. The tall tale is also a social statement that identifies and binds a folk group by flaunting the peculiar knowledge and experiences of group members, and it is a tool for coping with a stressful or even chaotic world, for conquering life's problems by laughing at them. Drawing on previous research and her own original fieldwork, the author develops in detail this definition of the tall tale as a genre of folklore, and she then explores how tall tale methods and meaning have been translated into literary humor. She probes the ways that writers have used this genre to create a complex theoretical relationship among text, author, narrator, and reader. Finally, Brown alludes to the echoes of all tale attitudes and style still found in modern written humor. -- From publisher's description.