ABSTRACT
The southwestern humorists have traditionally been identified as the major impulse behind Mark Twain's humor. Literary comedy does provide a sense of the origin of Twain ethics and the centrality of his jokes in developing his ethical viewpoints. Mark Twain as a literary comedian developed elements from each of these traditions into his own voice. Seeking commercial success and social acceptance in the Northeast, he developed his own egalitarian humor along compatible lines. Southwestern local color and English fancifulness expanded the comic moments of characterization into narrative episodes. Twain's novels mixed these elements in burlesque, in local color, and in melodrama in various proportions. The American popular audience bought Twain's novels; the British awarded him academic honors; and American critics came to find him uniquely representative of the American heartland—after they outdistanced the myopia caused by his origins in the popular form.
