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Many 19th century American authors earned their place in the literature canon, but none were more influential than Mark Twain. Writing during Reconstruction, he took on the issue of slavery from the white southern perspective. Want to learn more about this literary icon and who he was? Let’s jump right into the fascinating facts and circumstances of his life.
What is Mark Twain’s Real Name?
Who was Mark Twain? Not a real person. He was actually born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835. The pseudonym Mark Twain first appeared at the end of a dispatch from Carson City to
In Search of the Once and Future King: A Stranger In A Strange Land
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
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The past, if you will permit me to begin in the fashion of a high school book report, is a foreign country; they do things differently there. It is, or was, inhabited by people so very similar to us but whose modes of thought and world view were nevertheless informed by their differing social, cultural and political circumstances. The conventions and contextual underpinnings of these historical societies were plastic, changing over time in reaction to internal pressures and outside stimulus just as the shape and character of our own society is inevitably shifting around us. If the polities and civilizations of the past were malleable and occasionally even volatile constructs, so too were the cultural touchstones and inheritance that passed through them.