Tall Tale
Tall Tale,term applied to the type of frontier anecdote characterized by exaggeration or violent understatement, with realistic details of character or local customs that work toward a cumulative effect of the grotesque, romantic, or humorous. Tall tales depend for their humor partly upon the incongruity between the realism in which the scene and narrator are portrayed and the fantastically comic world of the enclosed narrative. Frontier storytellers created the oral tradition of the tall tale, and folk legends and myths were developed through this medium, especially about such heroes as Paul Bunyan, Mike Fink, and Davy Crockett. Later, the anecdotes began to be printed, and the tall tale became a distinct literary genre, which delightfully pictures the social life of the frontier. These mock oral tales were frequently published in almanacs and in such newspapers as the Spirit of the Times, and were of a length dictated by the necessities of such publication....
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