Connecticut Yankee, Twain’s Phantom Menace?
I am sure we have all read some of Twain’s other works, many of which are American classics. In this semester, we have all experienced older Arthurian traditions. I would have to say that I think Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is inferior to both of these sets of things. It is stylistically and narratively uninspiring. The characterizations are somewhat two dimensional, Hank Morgan is an enterprising capitalist and overhwhelmingly practical capitalist who displays little sense of wonder.  It is hard to see the book as anything other than an attempt to cash in on Twain’s literary celebrity, like the George Lucas using the Phantom Menace attempted to milk the Star Wars franchise for all it was worth. Would anyone care to disagree?
Mary wrote:
I don’t disagree, because it is a little underwhelming for a work by Mark Twain. However, I think that it’s more trying to cash in on the appeal of Arthuriana more than Mark Twain’s name. It could be a mixture of both, though, I suppose.
Not the most awe-inspiring comment in the world, but that’s all I have.
Posted 15 Nov 2007 at 3:24 pm ¶
sean wrote:
I don’t know if it’s on par with HF, or TS, but it’s not without interest, humor, and a very dark kind of misanthropy. I don’t see it as an attempt to cash in on anything; how crowd pleasing an effort could this be? Rather, I see it as a riposte to the rampant 19th C. Arthurianism that idealized Arthur, and the middle ages as a stable site of national origin, identity, etc.
Posted 27 Nov 2007 at 1:47 pm ¶