Lecture 12. Literature of the new spirit. Fiction at the turn of the 20th century.

The continuity of literature is, happily, not a continuity of unvarying standards or unchanging ideals. Literature is normally in a transitional state and there are no hard and fast chronological lines that separate the old from the new. Nevertheless there occur periods more or less clearly marked, in which one may trace the advent of new interests and the waning of old traditions. In America the new spirit is felt in the poetry of Markham, Hovey, Moody, and Robinson, whose work began to appear just before the close of the century. In fiction we have to look a little later for the expression of the new ideals; and yet the eighties and the nineties produced some interesting achievements in both realism and romance; developed a perfected art in the short story; brought forth the best novels of W. D. Howells, Henry James, and Marion Crawford.

Fiction since 1870.

It is in fiction that American writers are now most prolific and most successful, though it is doubtful if many of these works will find a place in the literature which endures, or if any of these popular novelists will be long remembered. Two schools of fiction are represented: the realistic, and the romantic. It is not always easy to discriminate, however, and there are writers who have used the methods of both schools.

MARK TWAIN (the pen name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910).

The first major quintessential American humorist, lecturer, essayist to be born away from the East Coast – in the border state of Missouri. His regional masterpieces were the memoir “Life on the Mississippi” and the novels “Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”.

“Adventures of Tom Sawyer”. Protagonist Tom Sawyer is introduced together with his friends Joe Harper and Huck Finn, young boys growing up in the antebellum South. While the novel was initially met with lukewarm enthusiasm, its characters would soon transcend the bounds of their pages and become internationally beloved characters, inspiring numerous other author’s works and characters and adaptations to the stage, television, and film.

The second novel in his Tom Sawyer adventure series “Huckleberry Finn” (1885) was met with outright controversy in Twain’s time but is now considered one of the first great American novels. A backdrop of colourful depictions of Southern society and places along the way, Huck Finn, the son of an abusive alcoholic father and Jim, Miss Watson’s slave, decide to flee on a raft down the Mississippi river to the free states. Their river raft journey has become an oft-used metaphor of idealistic freedom from oppression, broken family life, racial discrimination, and social injustice. Ernest Hemingway wrote “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”

Missouri was one of the fifteen slave states when the American Civil War broke out, so Twain grew up amongst the racism, lynch mobs, hangings, and general inhumane oppression of African Americans. He and some friends joined the Confederate side and formed a militia group, the ‘Marion Rangers’, though it disbanded after a few weeks, described in “The Private History of a Campaign That Failed” (1885). His article “The War Prayer” (1923) is Twain’s condemnation of hypocritical patriotic and religious motivations for war. It was not published until after his death because of his family’s fear of public outrage. Though he never renounced his Presbyterianism, he wrote other irreligious pieces, some included in his collection of short stories “Letters From Earth” (1909);

Mark Twain grew to despise the injustice of slavery and any form of senseless violence. He was opposed to vivisection and acted as Vice-President of the American Anti-Imperialist League for nine years. Through his works he illuminates the absurdity of humankind, ironically still at times labeled a racist. He is the source of numerous and oft-quoted witticisms and quips including “Whenever I feel the urge to exercise I lie down until it goes away”; “If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes”; “Familiarity breeds contempt — and children”. Twain is a master in crafting humorous verse with sardonic wit, and though with biting criticism at times he disarms with his renderings of colloquial speech and unpretentious language. Through the authentic depiction of his times he caused much controversy and many of his works have been suppressed, censored or banned, but even into the Twenty-First Century his works are read the world over by young and old alike. A prolific lecturer and writer even into his seventy-fourth year, he published more than thirty books, hundreds of essays, speeches, articles, reviews, and short stories, many still in print today.

He traveled to various cities in America, met Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charles Dickens in New York, and visited various countries in Europe, Hawaii, and the Holy Land which he based “Innocents Abroad” (1869) on. Short stories from this period include “Advice For Little Girls” (1867) and “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County” (1867).

“A Tramp Abroad” (1880), Twain’s non-fiction satirical look at his trip through Germany, Italy, and the Alps and somewhat of a sequel to “Innocents Abroad” was followed by “The Prince and the Pauper” (1882).

Twain's style – influenced by journalism, wedded to the vernacular, direct and unadorned but also highly evocative and irreverently humorous – changed the way Americans write their language. His characters speak like real people and sound distinctively American, using local dialects, newly invented words, and regional accents.