Abstract

Can a writer be considered a visual humorist? If words are the writer’s primary material, can they be bent into caricatural or grotesque formations? Through what filters must words be processed or mediated for comic pictures to emerge? This article seeks to answer these questions by focusing on an understudied short story that Mark Twain wrote in Florence, Italy: “Italian Without a Master,” published in Harper’s Weekly in 1904. The story offers a wild ride through the Italian language from the perspective of an English-speaking narrator who espouses “undictionarial” methods of translating the words he finds in the daily newspaper. To encourage readers to look at words with fresh eyes, Twain supplied, as his illustrations, clippings cut from the Italian papers. With these word-filled illustrations, Twain tests an expanded and experimental visuality, I argue, while also reimagining the terms of visual caricature. The story thus announces the capaciousness and elasticity of the writer’s comic vision, demonstrating his mastery over multiple domains. At the same time, however, the story also criticizes the impulse to expand into new territory by subtly gesturing to the geopolitics of imperialist “mastery,” which Twain railed against repeatedly at the turn of the century.

摘要

作家可以被认为是视觉幽默家吗？如果文字是作家的主要材料，它们是否可以弯曲成漫画或怪诞的形式？漫画图片必须通过哪些过滤器来处理或调解文字？本文试图通过关注马克吐温在意大利佛罗伦萨写的一篇未充分研究的短篇小说来回答这些问题：“没有大师的意大利人”，发表在哈珀周刊上1904 年。从一位讲英语的叙述者的角度，这个故事提供了一段穿越意大利语的狂野之旅，他支持翻译他在日报上找到的单词的“非字典式”方法。为了鼓励读者以新的眼光看待文字，吐温提供了从意大利报纸上剪下的剪报作为他的插图。我认为，通过这些充满文字的插图，吐温测试了一种扩展和实验性的视觉效果，同时也重新想象了视觉漫画的术语。因此，这个故事宣告了作者漫画视野的广阔性和弹性，展示了他对多个领域的掌握。然而，与此同时，这个故事也批评了通过巧妙地暗示帝国主义的地缘政治“掌握，