A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur s Court Mark

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Mark Twain By Nadira Sabirova 1 PA

Biography Born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, Samuel L. Clemens wrote under the pen name Mark Twain. He took his penname from the words “to mark” and “twain” which were used by leadsmen on steamboats to mark the depth of two fathoms. His father was an unsuccessful lawyer. The family rarely lived more than a year or two in the same town and future writer didn’t even finished secondary school, and started to work at the age of 12. Apart being a writer he also worked as a riverboat pilot in Mississippi river, journalist, lecturer, entrepreneur and inventor. Twain died on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut.

Besides being a humorist Twain is also a realist, the author of biting satire and irony and critical pages that reveal a lot of truth about American life and human society. He also was an excellent recorder of dialects and often used them in his books. In many of his books, Twain uses the characters' beliefs to give his readers insight into the moral climax of the time periods, described in his novels. William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature”.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889

Summary In the book, a Yankee engineer from Connecticut is accidentally transported back in time to the court of King Arthur, where he fools the inhabitants of that time into thinking that he is a magician, and soon uses his knowledge of modern technology to become a "magician" in earnest, stunning the English of the Early Middle Ages with modern technologies, fireworks, soap and newspapers. He attempts to modernize the past, but faces a lot of obstacles in his way.

Character list Hank Morgan (The Yankee and Sir Boss) – the Narrator ( we learn most of the story through his diary) Clarence (Hank's trusty friend) Merlin (An Old Wizard, canning and vindictive, fails in most his tricks and schemes) Alisande (Sandy) (high born fair maiden) King Arthur Queen Guinevere Sir Lancelot (“the Invincible” an ideal knight) Morgan Le Fay (A Queen of the neighboring country) Knights of the Round Table

This witty novel is a satire of romanticized ideas of chivalry, and of the idealization of the Middle Ages. For example, the book portrays the medieval people as being very simple and naive, as when Merlin makes a "veil of invisibility" which, according to him, will make the wearer imperceptible to his enemies, though friends can still see him. The knight Sir Sagramor wears it to fight Hank, who pretends that he cannot see Sagramor for effect to the audience. Apart from mocking the ignorance and superstitions of medieval people, Mark Twain makes some serious critical remarks about the monarchy, slavery and influence of Catholic Church. Twain first conceived of the idea behind A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court in December 1884 and worked on it between 1885 and 1889. It was first published in England by “Chatto & Windus” under the title A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur in December 1889. Writer and critic William Dean Howells called it Twain's best work and "an object-lesson in democracy". It was also one of the first description of time-travel in literature.

Mark Twain’s Most Famous Books The Innocents Abroad (1869) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) The Prince and the Pauper (1881) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)