Joe B. Fulton
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195390971
- eISBN:
- 9780199777099
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390971.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity, Church History
Mark Twain grappled seriously with theologians from the Calvinist tradition. While many of his comments seem dismissive (and funny), it is clear that Calvinism charged his writing with what one might ...
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Mark Twain grappled seriously with theologians from the Calvinist tradition. While many of his comments seem dismissive (and funny), it is clear that Calvinism charged his writing with what one might call an insistent humorousness of purpose. Reflecting on free will, election, and predestination, Twain read especially Jonathan Edwards; not just as one of whom to make fun but as one with whom he had much in common. Edwards provided more than just a whipping boy for Twain’s philosophical comedy—they shared a theological vocabulary, metaphysical assumptions, and a view of God as sovereign. Their disagreements were substantial, but Mark Twain and the Calvinists were partners in the same enterprise. Thus, one can argue that Twain’s growth as a writer came, not, as some have argued, only insofar as he could distance himself from his Calvinist upbringing and influences, but rather as he fully engaged and wrestled with that tradition.Less
Mark Twain grappled seriously with theologians from the Calvinist tradition. While many of his comments seem dismissive (and funny), it is clear that Calvinism charged his writing with what one might call an insistent humorousness of purpose. Reflecting on free will, election, and predestination, Twain read especially Jonathan Edwards; not just as one of whom to make fun but as one with whom he had much in common. Edwards provided more than just a whipping boy for Twain’s philosophical comedy—they shared a theological vocabulary, metaphysical assumptions, and a view of God as sovereign. Their disagreements were substantial, but Mark Twain and the Calvinists were partners in the same enterprise. Thus, one can argue that Twain’s growth as a writer came, not, as some have argued, only insofar as he could distance himself from his Calvinist upbringing and influences, but rather as he fully engaged and wrestled with that tradition.
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195121223
- eISBN:
- 9780199855162
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195121223.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
The first part of the chapter presents the other side of Mark Twain as a public figure, courted by limelight. The chapter asserts that Twain's mystique—his unique personality—is ultimately ...
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The first part of the chapter presents the other side of Mark Twain as a public figure, courted by limelight. The chapter asserts that Twain's mystique—his unique personality—is ultimately responsible for the enduring quality of his work and words, and the public tolerance for his sometimes polemical statements exposing the ugliness of society and the very people who profess to be his fans. The chapter goes on to recount the various offshoots, reproductions, and representations of Twain's work in America and beyond and then dwells on how these public responses to his literary pieces have been shaped by his socio-political views. The chapter also recounts Mark Twain's posthumous “life” through his appearances in literature, movies, television shows, and even cartoons. The chapter ends with a discussion on Twain's embrace of technology, fully aware of its terrible and grand potential to change the course of human destiny.Less
The first part of the chapter presents the other side of Mark Twain as a public figure, courted by limelight. The chapter asserts that Twain's mystique—his unique personality—is ultimately responsible for the enduring quality of his work and words, and the public tolerance for his sometimes polemical statements exposing the ugliness of society and the very people who profess to be his fans. The chapter goes on to recount the various offshoots, reproductions, and representations of Twain's work in America and beyond and then dwells on how these public responses to his literary pieces have been shaped by his socio-political views. The chapter also recounts Mark Twain's posthumous “life” through his appearances in literature, movies, television shows, and even cartoons. The chapter ends with a discussion on Twain's embrace of technology, fully aware of its terrible and grand potential to change the course of human destiny.
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195121223
- eISBN:
- 9780199855162
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195121223.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter describes Mark Twain's Hannibal, the physical setting of his most famous novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huck Finn, and his inspiration for countless others. ...
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This chapter describes Mark Twain's Hannibal, the physical setting of his most famous novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huck Finn, and his inspiration for countless others. Hannibal is the place where Twain grew up, where he shared the experiences of his two famous characters, Tom and Huck. Twain considered the town as a microcosm of America, living proof of its guilt and shame, and triumph and achievements. The chapter, using experiences while travelling to and within Hannibal, then traces the history of John Berry Meachum, a prominent slave turned free black reformist in neighboring St. Louis, Missouri, as a prologue to a discussion on slavery in the South, and its manifestations in Twain's hometown. The chapter describes the town as a tourism hotspot for Twain fans and relates her conversations with contemporary town members of their views on Twain's philosophy and works.Less
This chapter describes Mark Twain's Hannibal, the physical setting of his most famous novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huck Finn, and his inspiration for countless others. Hannibal is the place where Twain grew up, where he shared the experiences of his two famous characters, Tom and Huck. Twain considered the town as a microcosm of America, living proof of its guilt and shame, and triumph and achievements. The chapter, using experiences while travelling to and within Hannibal, then traces the history of John Berry Meachum, a prominent slave turned free black reformist in neighboring St. Louis, Missouri, as a prologue to a discussion on slavery in the South, and its manifestations in Twain's hometown. The chapter describes the town as a tourism hotspot for Twain fans and relates her conversations with contemporary town members of their views on Twain's philosophy and works.
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195121223
- eISBN:
- 9780199855162
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195121223.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This book blends personal narrative with reflections on history, literature, and popular culture to provide a lively and provocative look at who Mark Twain really was, how he got to be that way, and ...
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This book blends personal narrative with reflections on history, literature, and popular culture to provide a lively and provocative look at who Mark Twain really was, how he got to be that way, and what we do with his legacy today. The book illuminates the many ways that America has embraced Mark Twain—from the scenes and plots of his novels, to his famous quips, to his bushy-haired, white-suited persona. It reveals that we have constructed a Twain often far removed from the actual writer. For instance, we travel to Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain's home town, a locale that in his work is both the embodiment of the innocence of childhood and also an emblem of hypocrisy, barbarity, and moral rot. The book spotlights the fact that Hannibal today attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists and takes in millions yearly, by focusing on Tom Sawyer's boyhood exploits and ignoring Twain's portraits of the darker side of the slave South. The book's research yields fresh insights into the remarkable story of how this child of slaveholders became the author of the most powerful antiracist novel by an American. Mark Twain's presence in contemporary culture is pervasive and intriguing. The book demonstrates how Twain and his work echo, ripple, and reverberate throughout American society. This book offers an engrossing look at how Mark Twain's life and work have been cherished, memorialized, exploited, and misunderstood. It offers a wealth of insight into Twain, into his work, and into our nation, both past and present.Less
This book blends personal narrative with reflections on history, literature, and popular culture to provide a lively and provocative look at who Mark Twain really was, how he got to be that way, and what we do with his legacy today. The book illuminates the many ways that America has embraced Mark Twain—from the scenes and plots of his novels, to his famous quips, to his bushy-haired, white-suited persona. It reveals that we have constructed a Twain often far removed from the actual writer. For instance, we travel to Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain's home town, a locale that in his work is both the embodiment of the innocence of childhood and also an emblem of hypocrisy, barbarity, and moral rot. The book spotlights the fact that Hannibal today attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists and takes in millions yearly, by focusing on Tom Sawyer's boyhood exploits and ignoring Twain's portraits of the darker side of the slave South. The book's research yields fresh insights into the remarkable story of how this child of slaveholders became the author of the most powerful antiracist novel by an American. Mark Twain's presence in contemporary culture is pervasive and intriguing. The book demonstrates how Twain and his work echo, ripple, and reverberate throughout American society. This book offers an engrossing look at how Mark Twain's life and work have been cherished, memorialized, exploited, and misunderstood. It offers a wealth of insight into Twain, into his work, and into our nation, both past and present.
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195121223
- eISBN:
- 9780199855162
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195121223.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
The chapter recounts Mark Twain's lifelong battle with the ghost of slavery, racism, and his efforts, through his writings, to make his fellow citizens aware of and perhaps change their attitudes on ...
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The chapter recounts Mark Twain's lifelong battle with the ghost of slavery, racism, and his efforts, through his writings, to make his fellow citizens aware of and perhaps change their attitudes on the social blight. The chapter begins with the case of one Johnson Whittaker, the first black to enter Westpoint, who was subsequently expelled through racist acts in the late 19th century. This event helped shape Mark Twain from being ordinary Samuel Clemens of Hannibal to the insightful, socially-responsible author that he became. The chapter then traces the roots of and factors affecting this gradual transformation, including references to courageous former slaves whose stories further fueled Twain's burgeoning outrage for racism. In the last few sections, the chapter then juxtaposes Twain's social awakening to the experiences of her modern-day students, which serves to introduce the main topic of the following chapter.Less
The chapter recounts Mark Twain's lifelong battle with the ghost of slavery, racism, and his efforts, through his writings, to make his fellow citizens aware of and perhaps change their attitudes on the social blight. The chapter begins with the case of one Johnson Whittaker, the first black to enter Westpoint, who was subsequently expelled through racist acts in the late 19th century. This event helped shape Mark Twain from being ordinary Samuel Clemens of Hannibal to the insightful, socially-responsible author that he became. The chapter then traces the roots of and factors affecting this gradual transformation, including references to courageous former slaves whose stories further fueled Twain's burgeoning outrage for racism. In the last few sections, the chapter then juxtaposes Twain's social awakening to the experiences of her modern-day students, which serves to introduce the main topic of the following chapter.
Richard S. Lowry
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195102123
- eISBN:
- 9780199855087
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195102123.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
As Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens became one of America's first modern celebrities, successfully straddling the conflicts between culture and commerce. Twain manipulated the cultural outlets of his day, ...
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As Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens became one of America's first modern celebrities, successfully straddling the conflicts between culture and commerce. Twain manipulated the cultural outlets of his day, not only through publication of his diverse novels, but through newspapers, magazines, book reviews, advertising, and his popular performances and readings. This book examines a range of Twain's major works to show how the writer strove to establish his authority over the course of his career. For the author, Samuel Clemens's supreme fiction and most explicitly artful performance was Mark Twain, the fiction that authorized his fiction. The author reconstructs that performance as the moment at which the American Writer emerged as a profession. He gives attention to the historical and cultural context of the Gilded age, from Twain's influential contemporary William Dean Howells to the various genre books that Twain consistently mastered, e.g. travel guidebooks, manuals for boys, and autobiographies. The result is that this book will appeal to both Twain scholars and to scholars and students of nineteenth-century American literature and culture.Less
As Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens became one of America's first modern celebrities, successfully straddling the conflicts between culture and commerce. Twain manipulated the cultural outlets of his day, not only through publication of his diverse novels, but through newspapers, magazines, book reviews, advertising, and his popular performances and readings. This book examines a range of Twain's major works to show how the writer strove to establish his authority over the course of his career. For the author, Samuel Clemens's supreme fiction and most explicitly artful performance was Mark Twain, the fiction that authorized his fiction. The author reconstructs that performance as the moment at which the American Writer emerged as a profession. He gives attention to the historical and cultural context of the Gilded age, from Twain's influential contemporary William Dean Howells to the various genre books that Twain consistently mastered, e.g. travel guidebooks, manuals for boys, and autobiographies. The result is that this book will appeal to both Twain scholars and to scholars and students of nineteenth-century American literature and culture.
Henry B. Wonham
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195161946
- eISBN:
- 9780199788101
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161946.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter explores Mark Twain's life-long fascination with ethnic humor and caricature, highlighting the oxymoronic logic involved in his affection for “the genuine nigger show” and other forms of ...
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This chapter explores Mark Twain's life-long fascination with ethnic humor and caricature, highlighting the oxymoronic logic involved in his affection for “the genuine nigger show” and other forms of patently racist entertainment. This book traces the history of minstrel comedy in America and its transformation during the late 19th century into a new set of comedic conventions, including the “coon show” and the “variety show.” The chapter also explores the relationship between Huckleberry Finn's illustrations, which draw heavily on “coon” imagery and the novel's ostensibly “realist” tendencies.Less
This chapter explores Mark Twain's life-long fascination with ethnic humor and caricature, highlighting the oxymoronic logic involved in his affection for “the genuine nigger show” and other forms of patently racist entertainment. This book traces the history of minstrel comedy in America and its transformation during the late 19th century into a new set of comedic conventions, including the “coon show” and the “variety show.” The chapter also explores the relationship between Huckleberry Finn's illustrations, which draw heavily on “coon” imagery and the novel's ostensibly “realist” tendencies.
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195121223
- eISBN:
- 9780199855162
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195121223.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
The chapter makes a final tribute to the patriotism and bravery that Mark Twain exhibited in his works, particularly in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where he dared to defy the prevailing views ...
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The chapter makes a final tribute to the patriotism and bravery that Mark Twain exhibited in his works, particularly in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where he dared to defy the prevailing views of European superiority and American mediocrity. He was a hero to the various readers whom he helped free from the strictures of Victorian sensibility to step bravely into the modern age. He was a maverick who turned his back on conventional literary rules and managed to create a unique style that gracefully captured ordinary, even crude, vernacular speech to produce numerous literary masterpieces. Finally, he was a socio-political reformist who took it upon himself to fight the pervading social iniquities of his time with his words. Indeed, the echoes of his vibrant consciousness, immortalized in his work and deeply embedded in the warp and weave of American culture, is expected to reverberate for generations to come.Less
The chapter makes a final tribute to the patriotism and bravery that Mark Twain exhibited in his works, particularly in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where he dared to defy the prevailing views of European superiority and American mediocrity. He was a hero to the various readers whom he helped free from the strictures of Victorian sensibility to step bravely into the modern age. He was a maverick who turned his back on conventional literary rules and managed to create a unique style that gracefully captured ordinary, even crude, vernacular speech to produce numerous literary masterpieces. Finally, he was a socio-political reformist who took it upon himself to fight the pervading social iniquities of his time with his words. Indeed, the echoes of his vibrant consciousness, immortalized in his work and deeply embedded in the warp and weave of American culture, is expected to reverberate for generations to come.
Hilary Iris Lowe
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813042374
- eISBN:
- 9780813043494
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813042374.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Hilary Iris Lowe begins this volume with an examination of literary tourism in her essay on the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum in Hannibal, Missouri. Lowe argues that until recently, the town’s ...
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Hilary Iris Lowe begins this volume with an examination of literary tourism in her essay on the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum in Hannibal, Missouri. Lowe argues that until recently, the town’s history has taken a backseat to the “historic sites” related to the literary characters that were part of Twain’s fiction. The story of Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and “Nigger Jim” has long drawn tourists to Hannibal, which, as Lowe shows, became a place where fiction and history have been conflated as one in order to preserve the income-producing tourism that benefits the town.Less
Hilary Iris Lowe begins this volume with an examination of literary tourism in her essay on the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum in Hannibal, Missouri. Lowe argues that until recently, the town’s history has taken a backseat to the “historic sites” related to the literary characters that were part of Twain’s fiction. The story of Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and “Nigger Jim” has long drawn tourists to Hannibal, which, as Lowe shows, became a place where fiction and history have been conflated as one in order to preserve the income-producing tourism that benefits the town.
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195121223
- eISBN:
- 9780199855162
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195121223.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter provides a background of her lifelong fascination with American author, Mark Twain, including snippets of childhood memories and epiphanies over the novelist's books. A brief recounting ...
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This chapter provides a background of her lifelong fascination with American author, Mark Twain, including snippets of childhood memories and epiphanies over the novelist's books. A brief recounting of the iconic writer's indelible achievements and priceless contributions to American culture and society is made, specifically his role in the creation and marketing of a culture that Americans could be proud of. This is followed by a discussion on how Twain's skill and philosophy has helped broaden and enrich the mindset of generations of Americans. The next two chapters of the book provide insight into the life and milieu of Twain and aims to shed light on the murky intervals of his past. His vulnerabilities, complex personas, and sources of joy and pain are examined. In the final chapter, Twain's teachings and unique point of view is projected onto future generations, transcending race, culture, and geography.Less
This chapter provides a background of her lifelong fascination with American author, Mark Twain, including snippets of childhood memories and epiphanies over the novelist's books. A brief recounting of the iconic writer's indelible achievements and priceless contributions to American culture and society is made, specifically his role in the creation and marketing of a culture that Americans could be proud of. This is followed by a discussion on how Twain's skill and philosophy has helped broaden and enrich the mindset of generations of Americans. The next two chapters of the book provide insight into the life and milieu of Twain and aims to shed light on the murky intervals of his past. His vulnerabilities, complex personas, and sources of joy and pain are examined. In the final chapter, Twain's teachings and unique point of view is projected onto future generations, transcending race, culture, and geography.
Sarah Meer
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- July 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198812517
- eISBN:
- 9780191894695
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198812517.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
Claimants were not only a lifelong preoccupation for Mark Twain, they represent a powerful impulse in his writing; he sought on multiple occasions to write himself into a historical literary ...
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Claimants were not only a lifelong preoccupation for Mark Twain, they represent a powerful impulse in his writing; he sought on multiple occasions to write himself into a historical literary tradition that stretched back to the English middle ages. Twain’s irony and ambivalence have obscured his fascination with tradition, but the figure of the claimant captures his characteristic tension between distance and identification. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is a prime example of this impulse; the chapter suggests that it also harks back to the claimant’s origins in Yankee drama, as it is structured like a trip play.Less
Claimants were not only a lifelong preoccupation for Mark Twain, they represent a powerful impulse in his writing; he sought on multiple occasions to write himself into a historical literary tradition that stretched back to the English middle ages. Twain’s irony and ambivalence have obscured his fascination with tradition, but the figure of the claimant captures his characteristic tension between distance and identification. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is a prime example of this impulse; the chapter suggests that it also harks back to the claimant’s origins in Yankee drama, as it is structured like a trip play.
Sandra Gunning
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195099904
- eISBN:
- 9780199855100
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195099904.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
The chapter discusses responses of African Americans and American whites to the racialized and gendered discursive patterns of nineteenth-century white supremacist fiction. The author focuses on how ...
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The chapter discusses responses of African Americans and American whites to the racialized and gendered discursive patterns of nineteenth-century white supremacist fiction. The author focuses on how two novels can easily be read in opposition to white supremacist fiction—namely, Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) and Charles W. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901). Both argue in their respective novels that black/white sexual contact was a custom long upheld by whites themselves and that the real cause of violence along the color line was the white struggle to determine the rights of citizens according to race. Twain's novel embodies a struggle between black and white families and it is on the terrain of race and family that Pudd'nhead Wilson loses its battle with white supremacy over the structuring of American racial identity, property ownership, and civil rights. In the process, Twain reaches for metaphors of malignant blackness similar to those subsequently developed and exploited by Thomas Dixon. Chesnutt's novel articulates a plot that depends on the metaphor of twinning as a means of exploring regional and racial discrimination. It was written with a view to reforming black social conditions by addressing white racial attitudes. Both Pudd'nhead Wilson and The Marrow of Tradition offer radical and complex indictments of post-Reconstruction white supremacy, using the very terms that radical racists erected for their arguments. As members of a politically and racially diverse triptuch, Dixon, Twain, and Chesnutt are engaged in a fierce struggle to define black/white male heroism, and thus exemplify a traditional disclosure on lynching centered around figurations of black or white male criminality.Less
The chapter discusses responses of African Americans and American whites to the racialized and gendered discursive patterns of nineteenth-century white supremacist fiction. The author focuses on how two novels can easily be read in opposition to white supremacist fiction—namely, Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) and Charles W. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901). Both argue in their respective novels that black/white sexual contact was a custom long upheld by whites themselves and that the real cause of violence along the color line was the white struggle to determine the rights of citizens according to race. Twain's novel embodies a struggle between black and white families and it is on the terrain of race and family that Pudd'nhead Wilson loses its battle with white supremacy over the structuring of American racial identity, property ownership, and civil rights. In the process, Twain reaches for metaphors of malignant blackness similar to those subsequently developed and exploited by Thomas Dixon. Chesnutt's novel articulates a plot that depends on the metaphor of twinning as a means of exploring regional and racial discrimination. It was written with a view to reforming black social conditions by addressing white racial attitudes. Both Pudd'nhead Wilson and The Marrow of Tradition offer radical and complex indictments of post-Reconstruction white supremacy, using the very terms that radical racists erected for their arguments. As members of a politically and racially diverse triptuch, Dixon, Twain, and Chesnutt are engaged in a fierce struggle to define black/white male heroism, and thus exemplify a traditional disclosure on lynching centered around figurations of black or white male criminality.
Philip Lambert
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195390070
- eISBN:
- 9780199863570
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390070.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, Popular
This chapter considers the work of Bock and Harnick in the aftermath of the unprecedented success of Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Their next show was The Apple Tree (1966), a collection of three ...
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This chapter considers the work of Bock and Harnick in the aftermath of the unprecedented success of Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Their next show was The Apple Tree (1966), a collection of three mini-musicals based on short stories by Mark Twain, Frank R. Stockton, and Jules Feiffer. Mike Nichols directed and Jerome Coopersmith contributed to the adaptations. The show was a moderate success and has aged well, reappearing on Broadway in 2006 starring Kristin Chenoweth. Also during this time, Bock and Harnick helped write songs for another Broadway show, Baker Street (based on Sherlock Holmes stories), and wrote the score for a made-for-television musical, The Canterville Ghost (based on the Oscar Wilde novella).Less
This chapter considers the work of Bock and Harnick in the aftermath of the unprecedented success of Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Their next show was The Apple Tree (1966), a collection of three mini-musicals based on short stories by Mark Twain, Frank R. Stockton, and Jules Feiffer. Mike Nichols directed and Jerome Coopersmith contributed to the adaptations. The show was a moderate success and has aged well, reappearing on Broadway in 2006 starring Kristin Chenoweth. Also during this time, Bock and Harnick helped write songs for another Broadway show, Baker Street (based on Sherlock Holmes stories), and wrote the score for a made-for-television musical, The Canterville Ghost (based on the Oscar Wilde novella).
Selina Lai-Henderson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780804789646
- eISBN:
- 9780804794756
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804789646.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter charts the continued popularity and influence of Mark Twain in the US and around the world a century after his death, and what prominent Chinese writers such as Lu Xun and Lao She have ...
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This chapter charts the continued popularity and influence of Mark Twain in the US and around the world a century after his death, and what prominent Chinese writers such as Lu Xun and Lao She have said about Twain as an American writer, anti-imperialist, and supporter of Chinese rights at home and abroad. Introducing Twain’s lifelong connection with the Chinese and posthumous voyage in China, the chapter addresses the significant transition that Twain underwent in his attitudes toward the Chinese as a result of his global travels. While most Chinese scholars and readers tend to neglect Twain’s early perception of and prejudice toward the Chinese, the introduction calls to attention the important correlation between the writer’s moral journey and the posthumous impact of his work in China, and the necessity to consider this transition while examining the reasons to Twain’s lasting popularity there.Less
This chapter charts the continued popularity and influence of Mark Twain in the US and around the world a century after his death, and what prominent Chinese writers such as Lu Xun and Lao She have said about Twain as an American writer, anti-imperialist, and supporter of Chinese rights at home and abroad. Introducing Twain’s lifelong connection with the Chinese and posthumous voyage in China, the chapter addresses the significant transition that Twain underwent in his attitudes toward the Chinese as a result of his global travels. While most Chinese scholars and readers tend to neglect Twain’s early perception of and prejudice toward the Chinese, the introduction calls to attention the important correlation between the writer’s moral journey and the posthumous impact of his work in China, and the necessity to consider this transition while examining the reasons to Twain’s lasting popularity there.
Richard W. Kaeuper
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199244584
- eISBN:
- 9780191697388
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244584.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter discusses Mark Twain and his idea of romanticism. The most compelling reason to avoid romanticizing chivalry is that to take a view through rose-tinted lenses distorts and trivializes ...
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This chapter discusses Mark Twain and his idea of romanticism. The most compelling reason to avoid romanticizing chivalry is that to take a view through rose-tinted lenses distorts and trivializes this force in early European history. By escaping romanticism, people can recognize the linkage between chivalry and major issues in medieval society, especially the issue of violence and public order. It argues that in the problem of public order the knights play an important role, and that the guides to their conduct that chivalry provided are in themselves complex and problematic.Less
This chapter discusses Mark Twain and his idea of romanticism. The most compelling reason to avoid romanticizing chivalry is that to take a view through rose-tinted lenses distorts and trivializes this force in early European history. By escaping romanticism, people can recognize the linkage between chivalry and major issues in medieval society, especially the issue of violence and public order. It argues that in the problem of public order the knights play an important role, and that the guides to their conduct that chivalry provided are in themselves complex and problematic.
Hsuan L. Hsu
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479880416
- eISBN:
- 9781479843404
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479880416.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This book explores Mark Twain's fictional engagements with racism and colonialism by drawing on recent scholarship on Asian immigration, U.S. imperialism, race theory, and legal history. It ...
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This book explores Mark Twain's fictional engagements with racism and colonialism by drawing on recent scholarship on Asian immigration, U.S. imperialism, race theory, and legal history. It demonstrates the importance of Chinese immigration and U.S. transpacific relations in Twain's writings as well as the explicit and implicit comparisons that Twain drew between different racial groups over the course of his career. It also examines broader methodological issues, such as how literature can articulate tensions between different racial groups and how to critique processes of comparative racialization without reproducing their logic of analogy, By using Twain's career, the book reconceptualizes the intersections between topics often kept distinct in studies of the literature of the Gilded Age: imperialism, Chinese Exclusion, Jim Crow, the rise of corporations, and the development of the U.S. West. This introductory chapter provides an overview of Twain's career-long engagements with questions of migration, war, and colonialism raised by U.S. relations with China and the Philippines.Less
This book explores Mark Twain's fictional engagements with racism and colonialism by drawing on recent scholarship on Asian immigration, U.S. imperialism, race theory, and legal history. It demonstrates the importance of Chinese immigration and U.S. transpacific relations in Twain's writings as well as the explicit and implicit comparisons that Twain drew between different racial groups over the course of his career. It also examines broader methodological issues, such as how literature can articulate tensions between different racial groups and how to critique processes of comparative racialization without reproducing their logic of analogy, By using Twain's career, the book reconceptualizes the intersections between topics often kept distinct in studies of the literature of the Gilded Age: imperialism, Chinese Exclusion, Jim Crow, the rise of corporations, and the development of the U.S. West. This introductory chapter provides an overview of Twain's career-long engagements with questions of migration, war, and colonialism raised by U.S. relations with China and the Philippines.
Jonathan Arac
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823231782
- eISBN:
- 9780823241149
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823231782.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Samuel Clemens Pollit-Stead's composite figure of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain as petit-bourgeois paterfamilias and socialist booster of the 1930s allows her to explore, at once critically and ...
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Samuel Clemens Pollit-Stead's composite figure of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain as petit-bourgeois paterfamilias and socialist booster of the 1930s allows her to explore, at once critically and imaginatively, the cultural meanings that Dickens and Twain took on in their historical afterlives. Typically, Dickens and Twain have been brought together for contrast. From the beginning, Twain's originality was set against the Dickensian imitativeness of Bret Harte, 8 and if the project that led to Tom Sawyer bore some relation to David Copperfield, that relation was burlesque. James Cox has strikingly remarked on the disappearance of Dickens's early pseudonym, “Boz” while “Mark Twain” wholly displaced Samuel Clemens. To take this seriously requires that they will re-conceptualize the books and authors they study. It requires abandoning “literature” as an autonomous sphere of aesthetic contemplation and it requires instead thinking about “media” as potentialities for mediation between the parties in particular.Less
Samuel Clemens Pollit-Stead's composite figure of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain as petit-bourgeois paterfamilias and socialist booster of the 1930s allows her to explore, at once critically and imaginatively, the cultural meanings that Dickens and Twain took on in their historical afterlives. Typically, Dickens and Twain have been brought together for contrast. From the beginning, Twain's originality was set against the Dickensian imitativeness of Bret Harte, 8 and if the project that led to Tom Sawyer bore some relation to David Copperfield, that relation was burlesque. James Cox has strikingly remarked on the disappearance of Dickens's early pseudonym, “Boz” while “Mark Twain” wholly displaced Samuel Clemens. To take this seriously requires that they will re-conceptualize the books and authors they study. It requires abandoning “literature” as an autonomous sphere of aesthetic contemplation and it requires instead thinking about “media” as potentialities for mediation between the parties in particular.
Tracy Wuster
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617037689
- eISBN:
- 9781621039389
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617037689.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter examines the argument that Mark Twain represents the apogee of the antebellum southern frontier humor genre by analyzing “A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It” (1874), one ...
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This chapter examines the argument that Mark Twain represents the apogee of the antebellum southern frontier humor genre by analyzing “A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It” (1874), one of his works to use African American dialect. It suggests that “A True Story” was a transitional piece between antebellum southern frontier humor and postbellum local color fiction, and that it challenges the limitations inherent in writings featuring former slave narrators while addressing questions of race and gender in ways that more closely associated Twain with northern traditions that linked artistic work with moral aims. It argues that the “powerful dramatization of the sorrow of slavery” in “A True Story” created a considerable gap between the cultural work of Twain’s humor and that of the Old Southwest.Less
This chapter examines the argument that Mark Twain represents the apogee of the antebellum southern frontier humor genre by analyzing “A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It” (1874), one of his works to use African American dialect. It suggests that “A True Story” was a transitional piece between antebellum southern frontier humor and postbellum local color fiction, and that it challenges the limitations inherent in writings featuring former slave narrators while addressing questions of race and gender in ways that more closely associated Twain with northern traditions that linked artistic work with moral aims. It argues that the “powerful dramatization of the sorrow of slavery” in “A True Story” created a considerable gap between the cultural work of Twain’s humor and that of the Old Southwest.
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9789888455775
- eISBN:
- 9789882204034
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888455775.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This essay limns what American Studies scholars lose by ignoring work published outside the US or published in languages other than English. It then explores two current examples of transnational, ...
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This essay limns what American Studies scholars lose by ignoring work published outside the US or published in languages other than English. It then explores two current examples of transnational, interdisciplinary, collaborative research that cross national, disciplinary, linguistic and cultural borders. “Global Huck: A Digital Palimpsest Mapping Project, or Deep Map (DPMP)” centers on the question of how literature travels globally, taking the travels of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as the subject of its study. The essay outlines insights to be gained from looking at the novel’s travels in China, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and Portugal. The Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford focuses on the Chinese workers who built America’s first transcontinental railroad. It brings together work by scholars in history, literature, anthropology, American Studies and archaeology in the US and Asia to generate insights into a venture that shaped the world on both sides of the Pacific. Both ventures would not have been possible before the era of digitization.Less
This essay limns what American Studies scholars lose by ignoring work published outside the US or published in languages other than English. It then explores two current examples of transnational, interdisciplinary, collaborative research that cross national, disciplinary, linguistic and cultural borders. “Global Huck: A Digital Palimpsest Mapping Project, or Deep Map (DPMP)” centers on the question of how literature travels globally, taking the travels of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as the subject of its study. The essay outlines insights to be gained from looking at the novel’s travels in China, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and Portugal. The Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford focuses on the Chinese workers who built America’s first transcontinental railroad. It brings together work by scholars in history, literature, anthropology, American Studies and archaeology in the US and Asia to generate insights into a venture that shaped the world on both sides of the Pacific. Both ventures would not have been possible before the era of digitization.
Judith Yaross Lee
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617036439
- eISBN:
- 9781621030577
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036439.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter shows that, although Mark Twain tops most lists of great American humorists, analyses of his significance treat American culture as if humor were barely part of it. One of the likely ...
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This chapter shows that, although Mark Twain tops most lists of great American humorists, analyses of his significance treat American culture as if humor were barely part of it. One of the likely reasons for this is the belief that Twain’s humor belongs to a trivial nineteenth-century popular culture of dialect writing, hoaxes, and tall yarns, while his themes, especially race and politics, belong to the twentieth-century canon of belle lettres. This book shows that Samuel L. Clemens adapted nineteenth-century comic traditions to burgeoning twentieth-century cultural trends in ways that won popular and economic success in his own time, expressed modern views of self and society, and anticipated contemporary American humor and culture in many ways.Less
This chapter shows that, although Mark Twain tops most lists of great American humorists, analyses of his significance treat American culture as if humor were barely part of it. One of the likely reasons for this is the belief that Twain’s humor belongs to a trivial nineteenth-century popular culture of dialect writing, hoaxes, and tall yarns, while his themes, especially race and politics, belong to the twentieth-century canon of belle lettres. This book shows that Samuel L. Clemens adapted nineteenth-century comic traditions to burgeoning twentieth-century cultural trends in ways that won popular and economic success in his own time, expressed modern views of self and society, and anticipated contemporary American humor and culture in many ways.
