Evan Altman
26 October 2000

Mark Twain and A Connecticut Yankee

Mark Twain, one of the most famous authors in literary history, never actually existed. The man we know today as Mark Twain was actually Samuel Langhorne Clemens, an imaginative boy from the banks of the Mississippi River. Twain wrote under the pseudonym as a reference to his love affair with the mighty river. As an author, Clemens has few peers. As a humorist and satirist, he is unparalleled. His blatant criticism of social conventions and public figures alike won Twain many fans among all classes of readers. He published essays, articles, short stories, and books, and even traveled the country presenting lectures. One of Twains more noted, and criticized, works was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. With this novel, Twain presented a bold satire of Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur and other Arthurian tales. He did so at a very tumultuous period in his life. This paper will look into the life of Mark Twain and the text of A Connecticut Yankee to find their influences and their legacy.

The man who was to become Mark Twain was born in Florida, Missouri in 1835. A short time later, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, the town where Clemens was to spend his boyhood. Located on the Mississippi River, Hannibal was the perfect location for an adventurous child. Young Clemens would often build rafts and float down the river to see what trouble he could get into. On days when rafting was not on the order, he would simply sit and watch all of the activity on the busy river. This life of play ended when Clemens' father, a lawyer who had run aground after several failed business ventures, died in 1847. The boy was forced to go to work as an apprentice at local newspapers. Clemens worked as a typesetter, eventually joining his brother Orion, who owned several newspapers. Cursed with their fathers' skill in business, the brothers soon failed. Samuel traveled throughout the country over a period of nearly three years, finally returning to the river. Intentions to travel down the river were changed when Clemens fell in with a steamboat captain, Horace Bixby. Over time, Clemens earned his own pilot's license and spent his days traveling up and down the Mississippi (Hedblad 56).

The days of living on the river, though, were brought to an end by the advent of the Civil War. When he could no longer continue on the water, Clemens returned to land where he bounced from occupation to occupation. After a brief time spent as a Confederate soldier, Clemens decided that war was not the best way to make a living. He moved to Nevada to work again with brother Orion. There, he earned his way panning for gold and silver. Between panning, Clemens began to write more and more frequently, gaining fans and enemies alike. A journalist in Virginia City challenged Clemens to a duel and, rather than accept, he fled for San Francisco. There he became known as a humorist who was not afraid to poke fun at public figures. Small legal troubles forced Clemens out of town, though only for a short time. When he returned, his popularity continued to grow and newspaper contributions turned into stories and books. His first book, The Innocents Abroad, garnered Clemens commercial and critical success (Hedblad 56). To this point, Clemens had been writing under a pseudonym, the name which would eventually overtake his own. Samuel Langhorne Clemens had officially become Mark Twain.

The Innocents Abroad may have vaulted Mark Twain into the public spotlight, but it was only the beginning of what would eventually become an amazing career. "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches", Twains first short story, gained acclaim in the New York Saturday Press (Hedblad 56). He would go on to pen works that will forever be a part of American culture. Among the most notable are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Pudd'nhead Wilson: A Tale (Hedblad 53). Twain easily made the jump from journalist to author, producing works that went to the hearts of Americans. His early adventures on the Mississippi and his numerous occupations fueled his writing. This makes the sense of reality just as evident as the humor and the satire in Twain's work. Readers found something of themselves in Twain's stories, which is why he was such a successful author. In other ventures, though, Twain was not so successful. His problems with business dealings continued throughout his life, rising to a head as he was writing another of his hallmarks: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

A Connecticut Yankee is the tale of a New England machine shop superintendent who, after a blow to the head, finds himself in Britain at the time of King Arthur's reign. The Yankee, Hank Morgan, possesses a great deal more scientific knowledge than the residents of Arthur's court and so is able to gain a great deal of power. The plot is fueled by the vast differences and timeless similarities of the two different cultures and times. Though this subject matter is quite different from much of Twain's other work, A Connecticut Yankee also has much in common with the author's main body. In their work, King Arthur in America, Alan and Barbara Tepa Lupak comment that, "Twain recognizes in Connecticut Yankee (as he does in other of his works) that there can indeed be some nobility – not of birth but of character" (35). The idea of nobility by birth would have been painfully evident in King Arthur's court and equally so in the American aristocracy. Twain railed against this system in many of his writings. Frank Baldanza cites other similarities, writing, "one of the major aims of [The Prince and the Pauper, Joan of Arc, and A Connecticut Yankee] is the demonstration of the hypocrisy, greed, insensitivity, and barbarism that has become institutionalized in. . .England and France" (70). Themes were not the only commonalities that critics found in Twain's work though.

Edgar Lee Masters cites an entirely different similarity in Mark Twain: A Portrait. Masters states that "[Twain's] work as a whole was about to run thin with the American Claimant, the Connecticut Yankee, and many other books, some of which were but a rebrew of leaves strong at first" (152). This criticism of Twain is not confined to Masters alone. Other scholars have found Twain, particularly in A Connecticut Yankee, to run into trouble as his books wore on. What would begin powerfully, with a focus and a goal, would fade loosely as it drew to a close. Henry Nash Smith goes so far as to proclaim Connecticut Yankee an "extravagant failure" (117) in his aptly titled book, Mark Twain. Smith writes that although Twain's book contains "memorable examples of Twain's rowdy humor," (119) it remains "a grim reading experience" (119). These particular aspects of Twain's writing in Connecticut Yankee may have come as a direct result of circumstances in his own life at the time.

At the same time Twain was writing his addition to the Arthurian legend, he was highly involved in a very important business venture. Justin Kaplan details this venture in Mark Twain and His World. Kaplan writes that "In 1880 Mark Twain made a first investment of five thousand dollars in an automatic typesetting machine" (141). This machine would be able to do the work of four men. With Twain's background in typesetting, this advancement struck him as amazing. Twain stated that the "marvel made 'all the other wonderful inventions of the human brain' – he cited the telephone, locomotive, sewing machine . . . - 'sink pretty nearly into commonplace'" (Kaplan 141). The awe-inspiring ability of the machine, however, was soon to fade. Masters writes:"it was not long before machine went defective . . . require[ing] three or four thousand dollars a month out of Twain's pocket" (156). Even with all of the time and money, the typesetting process in general was soon to fall into obsolescence as a result of the Linotype machine (Kaplan 141). The eventual failure of his pet project would have a greater affect on Twain than pure economics though.

Mark Twain had linked himself very deeply to the typesetting machine. Its inventor, James W. Paige, was working at the Colt arms factory in Hartford (Kaplan 141), the same factory at which Twain's Hank Morgan was a superintendent. Kaplan writes that "for about three years the Yankee and Paige's typesetter were twinned in Mark Twain's mind. 'I want to finish the day the machine finishes'" (Kaplan 148). Twain's hyperbolic statements about the value of the machine and his faith in its properties showed clearly that it was more than just another business deal. Both the typesetter and the Connecticut Yankee fell short of Twain's expectations. Twain himself stated: "If it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library – and a pen warmed up in hell" (Kaplan 151).

The thoughts that Twain actually did place on paper, despite his self-criticism, did continue a strong tradition of Arthurian literature. The most obvious of Twain's influences was Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. George W. Cable, a friend of Twain's, recommended the book while the two were on a lecture tour. It soon became one of Twain's favorites (Kaplan 143). Twain found the writing to be second to none, but the ideals and values of Arthurian Britain did not receive the same reverence. It was these values, some of which still existed for Twain, that he railed against in Connecticut Yankee. The Lupaks tell of Twain's indictment of certain beliefs, writing, "The focus of A Connecticut Yankee's often bitter satire is the oppressive role of superstitions, the church, and nobility in King Arthur's England" (43). Twain himself had been born into the "feudal, slaveholding culture of the agrarian South" (Kaplan 144) and would have been familiar with many of the social beliefs of Arthur's Britain. By dealing with the beliefs and practices of society, Twain was able to satirize a work he truly loved without attacking the work directly.

His attack on medieval British convention may have made Twain the most noted satirist of the Arthurian legend, but he was certainly not the first. One of the earliest Americans to make light of the Round Table was Edgar Fawcett. This Twain predecessor made a "deliberate mockery of the chivalric ideals of Tennyson's Camelot" (Lupak 35). Oscar Fay Adams "responds to Tennyson in a similarly mocking tone" (37) as he re-tells the story of Arthur using the Idylls as a basis. The Lupaks state that, "Typical of American literature, [Adams] shift[s] the focus to everyday concerns" (37). Max Adeler, another satirist, may have had a very direct effect on Twain's writing. Lupak's work holds that "[Adeler's work], Professor Baffin's Adventures inspired A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court" (46). This conclusion came as a result of the "examination of the similarities" between the two works (46). Twain was able to build on the foundation that those before him had built. His reputation and popularity gave him access to a huge audience and established him as the king of Arthurian satire.

Twain's prowess eventually manifested itself in a legacy of works and performances that keep A Connecticut Yankee alive still today. Twain took the American Arthurian tradition to new heights and allowed it to branch out beyond literature. His work inspired several retellings: a 1931 movie with Will Rogers, another in 1949 with Bing Crosby, and the classic "A New York Yankee in King Arthur's Court" with Reggie Jackson (Lupak 57). Much of the darker side of Twain's work is left out as "the retellings usually focus on the comic aspect of the novel" (57). Beyond humor alone, Twain left an even more important contribution to literature with A Connecticut Yankee. His "approach has a thematic analogue in a number of later Arthurian works which question the possibility of achieving the glorious dream of Arthur's kingdom or of remaining an innocent in a world that, however Edenic it may seem, always has a serpent in the garden" (Lupak 58). Twain made reality a part of the Arthurian legend, he stripped all of the chivalry and honor away and replaced them with everyday characteristics. This alteration is his lasting addition to the legend of King Arthur.

In writing A Connecticut Yankee, Mark Twain set out to parody a society in which the church was God and men were born into power. In finishing that very work, Twain had completed a semi-autobiography, an indictment of feudal culture, and created a new paradigm. It is written that "Mark Twain's novel is in many ways the central text in American Arthuriana" (Lupak 35). Twain was able to set a new standard in American literature with his treatment of Malory's work. He left a legacy that is still palpable today. Hank Morgan's journey to Arthur's court is applicable to any period of time and any individual. Though there were American Arthurians before him, "Twain's novel most clearly and literally brings Arthurian values together with American concerns and characters" (Lupak 58). Surely, this alone makes A Connecticut Yankee far more than the "extravagant failure" Smith characterizes it as. With its roots deep in literary tradition and its effects yet in their early stages, Twain's work is one of the most important in American literature.

Works Cited

Baldanza, Frank. Mark Twain: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1961.

"Clemens, Samuel Langhorne." Alan Hedblad, ed. Something About the Author v. 100. Detroit: Gale Research, 1999.

Kaplan, Justin. Mark Twain and His World. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974.

Lupak, Alan and Barbara Tepa Lupak. "Reaction to Tennyson: Parody." King Arthur in America. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999.

Mark Twain: A Collection of Critical Essays. Henry Nash Smith, ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963.

Masters, Edgar Lee. Mark Twain: A Portrait. New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1966.