Pub Date : 2018-09-20DOI: 10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0155
Hugh H. Davis
Abstract:In its 130-year history, The Prince and the Pauper has held a legacy of being one of Mark Twain’s most-popular works, but it has often been dismissed as a children’s book or simplistic tale, a likely result of popular culture presentations of the narrative. A survey of the many adaptations of the novel reveals an apparent case of diminishing returns, with successive versions connecting less to Clemens’s original vision, and the plot reduced to an outline in which lookalikes switch places and discover some variation of the idea that the grass is not truly greener on the other side. Where more serious versions reveal the social themes of the novel, many adaptations replace the potential for mature commentary with a simplistic comedy of errors. A review of The Prince and the Pauper through its pop cultural transformations reveals the popularity of the story while also showing filmmakers’ tendencies to reshape Twain’s narrative.
{"title":"Miles to Go: The Prince and the Pauper in Film and Television","authors":"Hugh H. Davis","doi":"10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0155","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In its 130-year history, The Prince and the Pauper has held a legacy of being one of Mark Twain’s most-popular works, but it has often been dismissed as a children’s book or simplistic tale, a likely result of popular culture presentations of the narrative. A survey of the many adaptations of the novel reveals an apparent case of diminishing returns, with successive versions connecting less to Clemens’s original vision, and the plot reduced to an outline in which lookalikes switch places and discover some variation of the idea that the grass is not truly greener on the other side. Where more serious versions reveal the social themes of the novel, many adaptations replace the potential for mature commentary with a simplistic comedy of errors. A review of The Prince and the Pauper through its pop cultural transformations reveals the popularity of the story while also showing filmmakers’ tendencies to reshape Twain’s narrative.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41778868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-20DOI: 10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0124
G. Thompson
Abstract:Mark Twain’s No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (ca. 1905ca. 1908ca. 1909) has striking similarities to Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man (1857). These two books mark the evolution of American modernism to an early form of postmodernism— most notably in their similarly complex treatments of novel and romance genres, the nature of identity, disrupted narrative techniques, metafictional elements, and speculation on the relation of fiction and reality. In both works, the presumption of a single unitary self is under assault, along with moral, religious, and existential concepts of selfhood. Melville’s and Twain’s criticisms of the concept of the single self not only recognize multiple selves in general, but also focus on author/reader mutual identities. Twain’s book becomes an ironic indictment of any reader who reads it.
{"title":"Ornithorhyncus Platypus Extraordinariensis: Modernist Metafiction and the Assault on the Reader in Melville’s The Confidence-Man and Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger","authors":"G. Thompson","doi":"10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0124","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Mark Twain’s No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (ca. 1905ca. 1908ca. 1909) has striking similarities to Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man (1857). These two books mark the evolution of American modernism to an early form of postmodernism— most notably in their similarly complex treatments of novel and romance genres, the nature of identity, disrupted narrative techniques, metafictional elements, and speculation on the relation of fiction and reality. In both works, the presumption of a single unitary self is under assault, along with moral, religious, and existential concepts of selfhood. Melville’s and Twain’s criticisms of the concept of the single self not only recognize multiple selves in general, but also focus on author/reader mutual identities. Twain’s book becomes an ironic indictment of any reader who reads it.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49122996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-20DOI: 10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0077
Andrew Alquesta
Abstract:Connecticut Yankee stands as one of Twain’s most overtly political novels. Critics have read its protagonist, Hank Morgan, as anything from a progressive reformer to an authoritarian oppressor. This article attempts to explain some of Hank’s contradictions by reading him as a populist in two intersecting ways. First, he serves as a figure for the workingman that was valorized by the late nineteenth-century People’s Party. Second, his rhetoric suggests the lowercase-p populism that splits the political sphere into an insurgent form of “the people” and its elite “other.” Critics of populism argue that this structure is necessarily anti-democratic, and contemporary commentators often use populism as little more than a dirty word; however, this article argues that Connecticut Yankee offers further support to the claim that, at the very least, populism is an element of democracy and, at its best, can disrupt the political status quo in ways that help assert popular sovereignty.
{"title":"A Populist in King Arthur’s Court","authors":"Andrew Alquesta","doi":"10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0077","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Connecticut Yankee stands as one of Twain’s most overtly political novels. Critics have read its protagonist, Hank Morgan, as anything from a progressive reformer to an authoritarian oppressor. This article attempts to explain some of Hank’s contradictions by reading him as a populist in two intersecting ways. First, he serves as a figure for the workingman that was valorized by the late nineteenth-century People’s Party. Second, his rhetoric suggests the lowercase-p populism that splits the political sphere into an insurgent form of “the people” and its elite “other.” Critics of populism argue that this structure is necessarily anti-democratic, and contemporary commentators often use populism as little more than a dirty word; however, this article argues that Connecticut Yankee offers further support to the claim that, at the very least, populism is an element of democracy and, at its best, can disrupt the political status quo in ways that help assert popular sovereignty.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47900295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-20DOI: 10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0105
Gregg Camfield
Abstract:When he began writing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain believed in an Enlightenment idea of progress and focused much of his satirical energy attacking literalist religion as a vestige of a more primitive state of human civilization. He called these vestiges lies. By the time he shifted his focus to the problem of racism, he began to doubt the idea of progress, wondering instead whether all cultures are fundamentally based on lies and therefore impervious to direct efforts to promote progress. He postulated instead that judicious lying is the best tool to improve humankind.
{"title":"The Art of Judicious Lying","authors":"Gregg Camfield","doi":"10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0105","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:When he began writing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain believed in an Enlightenment idea of progress and focused much of his satirical energy attacking literalist religion as a vestige of a more primitive state of human civilization. He called these vestiges lies. By the time he shifted his focus to the problem of racism, he began to doubt the idea of progress, wondering instead whether all cultures are fundamentally based on lies and therefore impervious to direct efforts to promote progress. He postulated instead that judicious lying is the best tool to improve humankind.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47023267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-20DOI: 10.5325/marktwaij.16.1.0011
Ben Click
Abstract:This article offers a new interpretation of the thirteen-page “raft episode,” originally intended as part of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn yet never appearing in any edition during Twain’s lifetime. The episode has been problematic for both editors and readers, to say the least. Editors must decide whether to include it or not, and readers must decide how to interpret it if it is included. This article focuses on the episode as the longest stretch of Huck’s silence in the book and argues that it models the kind of work silence performs in achieving a basic coherence for the narrative. More broadly, it shows how Twain imbues the book with silences wherein the trope of rhetorical listening, as witnessed through and practiced by Huck, enacts a stance of openness for Huck and engenders that stance for the reader in order to encounter and make sense of the cross-cultural exchanges that occur in Huck’s silent dialectics. The argument briefly contextualizes the editorial problem and the episode’s rhetorical exigence for both Life on the Mississippi and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It then clarifies the theoretical uses of silence, rhetorical listening, and identification. And, finally, it analyzes how silence and rhetorical listening function before, during, and after the raft episode.
{"title":"Rhetorical Listening, Silence, and Cultural (Dis)identifications in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Revisiting the “Raft Episode” Again, Ugh!","authors":"Ben Click","doi":"10.5325/marktwaij.16.1.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/marktwaij.16.1.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article offers a new interpretation of the thirteen-page “raft episode,” originally intended as part of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn yet never appearing in any edition during Twain’s lifetime. The episode has been problematic for both editors and readers, to say the least. Editors must decide whether to include it or not, and readers must decide how to interpret it if it is included. This article focuses on the episode as the longest stretch of Huck’s silence in the book and argues that it models the kind of work silence performs in achieving a basic coherence for the narrative. More broadly, it shows how Twain imbues the book with silences wherein the trope of rhetorical listening, as witnessed through and practiced by Huck, enacts a stance of openness for Huck and engenders that stance for the reader in order to encounter and make sense of the cross-cultural exchanges that occur in Huck’s silent dialectics. The argument briefly contextualizes the editorial problem and the episode’s rhetorical exigence for both Life on the Mississippi and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It then clarifies the theoretical uses of silence, rhetorical listening, and identification. And, finally, it analyzes how silence and rhetorical listening function before, during, and after the raft episode.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43643009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-20DOI: 10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0190
Hugh H. Davis
Abstract:The subject of filmed Mark Twain has only begun to be examined by scholars. Adaptations vary in format, production values, quality, and fidelity to the source material widely. Film versions of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have received the bulk of critical attention, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court seems to have inspired many filmmakers, but the Mark Twain work that appears to have produced the most adaptations is The Prince and the Pauper. In the almost 110 years since the first silent version premiered, ninety-five variations on the Tudor tale have been released, with these adaptations varying from traditional and highly faithful renditions to versions that connect by very slim similarities. The novel’s plot has often been borrowed for episodes of television series, with stories involving previously unknown doubles and the switching of identities. This filmography traces and catalogs those adaptations that based on Mark Twain’s novel.
{"title":"Filmography of The Prince and the Pauper","authors":"Hugh H. Davis","doi":"10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0190","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The subject of filmed Mark Twain has only begun to be examined by scholars. Adaptations vary in format, production values, quality, and fidelity to the source material widely. Film versions of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have received the bulk of critical attention, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court seems to have inspired many filmmakers, but the Mark Twain work that appears to have produced the most adaptations is The Prince and the Pauper. In the almost 110 years since the first silent version premiered, ninety-five variations on the Tudor tale have been released, with these adaptations varying from traditional and highly faithful renditions to versions that connect by very slim similarities. The novel’s plot has often been borrowed for episodes of television series, with stories involving previously unknown doubles and the switching of identities. This filmography traces and catalogs those adaptations that based on Mark Twain’s novel.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41514834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-20DOI: 10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0096
D. Bliss
Abstract:Among the many reasons the often-quoted (and misquoted) Mark Twain remains such an important figure in American culture today is the continuing relevance of his commentary on American politics and public policy. Twain wrote in 1908, “History repeats itself; whatever has been the rule in history may be depended upon to be the rule.” The author does not, and will not, attempt to say what Twain might think or say about President Trump. That speculation is left to the reader, but what Twain had to say about American politics and governance helps explain how and why Trump was elected and offers guidance in critiquing his presidency.
{"title":"Mark Twain Explains the Trump Presidency: Mark Twain’s Political Commentary Remains Relevant Today","authors":"D. Bliss","doi":"10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0096","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0096","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Among the many reasons the often-quoted (and misquoted) Mark Twain remains such an important figure in American culture today is the continuing relevance of his commentary on American politics and public policy. Twain wrote in 1908, “History repeats itself; whatever has been the rule in history may be depended upon to be the rule.” The author does not, and will not, attempt to say what Twain might think or say about President Trump. That speculation is left to the reader, but what Twain had to say about American politics and governance helps explain how and why Trump was elected and offers guidance in critiquing his presidency.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45593753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-20DOI: 10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0064
H. Kersten
Abstract:“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand,” one of Mark Twain’s most famous quotes, propounds the idea that humor can serve as a social corrective in American political life. Mark Twain scholars and the general public have tended to regard these words as a condensed version of the writer’s credo as a humorist. By retracing the history of the phrase, which first appeared in The Mysterious Stranger, six years after Mark Twain’s death, and by placing it in the context of nineteenth-century American political humor, this article draws attention to the tensions between the original meaning and its popular interpretation. At the same time, it illustrates the difficulties and complexities involved in the attempt to portray Mark Twain’s concept of humor.
{"title":"Mark Twain’s “Assault of Laughter”: Reflections on the Perplexing History of an Appealing Idea","authors":"H. Kersten","doi":"10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0064","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand,” one of Mark Twain’s most famous quotes, propounds the idea that humor can serve as a social corrective in American political life. Mark Twain scholars and the general public have tended to regard these words as a condensed version of the writer’s credo as a humorist. By retracing the history of the phrase, which first appeared in The Mysterious Stranger, six years after Mark Twain’s death, and by placing it in the context of nineteenth-century American political humor, this article draws attention to the tensions between the original meaning and its popular interpretation. At the same time, it illustrates the difficulties and complexities involved in the attempt to portray Mark Twain’s concept of humor.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46144451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-20DOI: 10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0029
Virginia Maresca
Abstract:This article draws parallels between Twain's critique of racial ideology in Pudd’nhead Wilson and the modern concept of color-blind racism to argue that Twain’s seeming avoidance of racial issues actually highlights a new, burgeoning racial ideology. Using Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s four classifications of color-blind racism, the article explores how Twain’s characters, narrator, and setting exhibit the frames of naturalization, minimization, cultural racism, and abstract liberalism that enable this ideological bias. Twain diagnoses a social evil that takes shape in the Jim Crow era but continues today, outlining how our institutions not only create and reinforce systemic racism but also our blindness to it.
{"title":"The Colorless History of That Dull Country Town: Color-Blind Racism in Pudd’nhead Wilson","authors":"Virginia Maresca","doi":"10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.16.1.0029","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article draws parallels between Twain's critique of racial ideology in Pudd’nhead Wilson and the modern concept of color-blind racism to argue that Twain’s seeming avoidance of racial issues actually highlights a new, burgeoning racial ideology. Using Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s four classifications of color-blind racism, the article explores how Twain’s characters, narrator, and setting exhibit the frames of naturalization, minimization, cultural racism, and abstract liberalism that enable this ideological bias. Twain diagnoses a social evil that takes shape in the Jim Crow era but continues today, outlining how our institutions not only create and reinforce systemic racism but also our blindness to it.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2018-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43814375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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