Samuel Clemens Interpretation of the literary artist and critical views of his works
"Heaven and Hell and sunset and rainbows and the aurora all fused into on divine harmony . . . " It is by the goodness of God that in out country we have those three unspeakable precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. Samuel Clemens' profound response to beauty was immediately and untrammeled-the beauty of nature, for which no special training is necessary for appreciation. The quote above supports the idea that Samuel Clemens was a literary artist, possibly America's greatest. Yet, he was definitely not just a writer. He wrote many novels that became American classics. Many of Clemens' greatest works were based on his own personal experiences as a young man on the Mississippi River, and through theses writing he established a place for himself in the classics of American literature. To this day, Samuel Langhorne Clemens is, without a doubt, America's most picturesque literary figure. Perhaps a part of his appeal to the mass imagination lies in the fact that he himself became the embodiment of literature throughout his and the rest of time. The mastery of his literary oeuvres has surpassed the conventional cascade of literature since the 1800's. Samu
7. Information Finder. Mark Twain. (c) 1994 World Book, Inc. Because he finds it politically expedient to seem as if he shares the values of the people around him, Morgan eventually is forced to leave the court on a knightly quest. He travels into the country with the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise- whom he promptly nicknames "Sandy"- in order to liberate forty-five "princesses" held captive in "a castle" by "three ogres." After all, Hank is much too "practical" to waste time on anything that is not financially remunerative. It should not come then in any surprise that Hank wishes he could remake man without a conscience because conscience "cannot be said to pay." Ironically, when Hank is enslaved, he criticizes his master for having a heart "solely for business." Hank is completely unaware that the slave master is only a cruder version of himself; both see men in terms of their commercial value, and neither is apt to allow sentiment to interfere with business. That Twain himself saw a parallel between slave masters and financiers is establishes by an illustration in the first edition of A Connecticut Yankee, an illustration that Twain singled out for praise: The slave master was given the features of Jay Gould, the great robber baron. And it is worth nothing, at this point, that Hank is tied by his name to a capitalist of dubious reputation, the great American banker, J.P. Morgan. (Miller, 122) When he first approaches Camelot, Morgan observes that the men "look like animals," and he later decides that they are "white Indians." He scorns the occasional condescends to see the people as "a childlike and innocent lot," he cannot take them seriously. Because their culture is completely unlike his own, because it is so "un-American," it therefore follows that the country is not civilized. Hank tells us:
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3682
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page double spaced)
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