Tar Heel Laughter

ISBN: 9780807841150

出版年: 1983-7

页数: 310

定价: $ 25.99

内容简介

Foreword
Laughter??? it is said??? exercises the muscles??? invigorates the
lungs??? and lightens the depressed spirits. As long as we can laugh???
neither pollution nor war nor man s lethal creations shall ever de-
stroy us. \"For me???\" wrote O. Henry??? \"it is to laugh.\" And O.
Hem v s fellow North Carolinians??? back through the years and up to
the present??? would seem to agree??? Except for an implacable mul-
ligrubbing sourpuss??? everyone enjoys a joke. A fllnny story??? told or
written with a sense of native art??? never goes unappreciated??? even in
the depths of Gates County s Dismal Swamp. With a laugh??? the
whole world becomes brighter.
When John Lawson??? a happy Londoner exploring the New
World??? wrote tip his journeys of those first dim years of the eigh-
teenth century??? the recorded history of North Carolina humor
began. Sadly??? for more than 120 years thereafter??? the records were
sparse. Then??? during the three decades %llowing Ham Jones s
famous \"Cousin Sally Dilliard\" in 1831??? rich comic inventions
surged from the minds of tim-loving North Carolinians. At that
time??? newspapermen??? not merely reporters and anecdotists but
typesetters as well??? were prime chroniclers of North Carolina hu-
mor. Salisbury s Ham Jones and Milton s C. N. B. Evans epito-
mized a southern practice and a southern style in the vein of the old
Southwest although they lived on its northeastern periphery. In-
(iced??? Johnson Jones Hooper of Wilmington??? North Carolina. was
one of the most famous humorists of the old Southwest. In 1835??? at
the age of twenty??? Hooper moved to Alabama and thereafter wrote
almost exclusively of his adopted state.
After the Civil War??? humor in North Carolina once more
moved along steadily??? if slowly at times. Gradually such favorite
antebellum genres as dialect letters??? well-nigh indigestible today ex-
cept tor the historians??? professional linguists??? and lexicographers???
disappeared to be replaced by the stories of gifted raconteurs. With
the coming of the twentieth century??? journalists??? who were no longer
typesetters but still anecdotists as well as reporters??? reaffirmed an
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