American Humor: A Study of the National Character Book

In this critical study, Rourke ranges far and wide across the landscape of American culture, from the post-colonial beginnings of an identifiable American culture up to the 1920s. Her focus is on humor, but only loosely, as she emphasizes the importance of humor in relation to her real topic: the development of the American character as it is presented in the literature and theater of the times. She engages in a large number of critiques, none of them particularly in-depth or biographical, but many of her insights, particularly in regard to an author's tone and relationship to the march of cultural history, are intriguing.

Rourke regards the shrewd and dry-humored Yankee as the basis of much of our culture. He gave rise to the woodsman and his tall tales of frontier life. The Black sensibility of course developed on its own. She points out the central presence of a variety of types of humor in American life. From examining the work of some dramatists and tale-spinners, she takes us through a cursory discussion of some of the giants of American literature: Poe, Melville, James, Dickinson, and Lewis, to name a few. By today's standards, this is pretty quaint stuff - but it is still valid and interesting; a good book for any student of American literature and culture.