FRONTIER HUMOUR

vital and exuberant literature that was generated by the westward expansion of the United States in the late 18th and the 19th centuries. The spontaneity, sense of fun, exaggeration, fierce individuality, and irreverence for traditional Eastern values in frontier humour reflect the optimistic spirit of pre-Civil War America. Frontier humour appears mainly in tall tales of exaggerated feats of strength, rough practical jokes (especially on sophisticated Easterners and greenhorns), and tales of encounters with panthers, bears, and snakes. These tales are filled with rough, homely wisdom. Davy Crockett, whose Narrative (1834) is a combination of tall tales, comic self-portraiture, and humorous proverbs, is the classic proponent of frontier humour. Others include Mike Fink, king of the Mississippi River keelboatmen, and Paul Bunyan, hero of the northwestern loggers. Representative writers of Southern frontier humour are A.B. Longstreet, Thomas B. Thorpe, Johnson Jones Hooper, and George Washington Harris. Mark Twain represents a culmination of the tradition. See also local colour.