Mark Twain has fun in “Huckleberry Finn” with today’s New Testament reading, which is about Moses being discovered in “the bushrushers.” Victor Hugo also has a charming poem about the incident.
Tag Archives: Mark Twain
A Cradle Yet Shall Save the Earth
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Moses on the Nile", Exodus, Huckleberry Finn, Moses, Victor Hugo Comments closed
Twain Anticipated Trump’s Crazy Talk
Donald Trump is popular with certain fans not despite but because of his outrageousness. Mark Twain has a humorous piece, “The Presidential Candidate,” that captures how much fun such outrageousness can be.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Presidential Candidate Comments closed
Walmart Practices a Tom Sawyer Economy
Walmart relies on American taxpayers to subsidize its work force. This is being called “a Tom Sawyer economy,” an allusion to the fence whitewashing episode.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged American businesses, Tax Policy, Tom Sawyer, Walmart Comments closed
Be Skeptical of Shakespeare’s Skeptics
Recent evidence further confirms what most Shakespeare scholars believe: that Shakespeare wrote the plays ascribed to him. The Bard’s social anxieties, however, may have communicated themselves to the skeptics, who play out their own anxieties as they attempt to tear him down.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Charlie Chaplin, Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon, Shakespeare authorship debate, Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare Comments closed
How Trump Is Changing the Discourse
Adam Gopnik of “New Yorker” and Andrew Sullivan of “New York” are very, very frightened by the rise of Trump. As they explain why, they quote Tom Stoppard, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Plato.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Donald Trump, Fascism, GOP, Huckleberry Finn, It Can't Happen Here, J. R. R. Tolkien, Jumpers, Lord of the Rings, politics, Presidential politics, protofascism, Sinclair Lewis, Tom Stoppard Comments closed
Cruz as Beowulf? Try Grendel
Thursday Normally I would be delighted with a New York Times article that matched up presidential candidates with works of literature, such as Ted Cruz with Beowulf, Hillary Clinton with Persuasion, and Bernie Sanders with Around the World in 80 Days. This piece, however, strikes me as so uninformative that it’s all but useless. I’ve tried […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Around the World in 80 Days, Beowulf, Bernie Sanders, Carla Fiorina, Charles Dickens, Democrats, Donald Trump, Election 2016, GOP, Hillary Clinton, Huckleberry Finn, Jane Austen, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne, Mansfield Park, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Oliver Twist, Persuasion, politics, Rand Paul, Tale of Two Cities, Ted Cruz Comments closed
Trump as the Duke of Bilgewater
Although a couple of recent articles have compared Donald Trump to Pap in “Huckleberry Finn,” I find him to be much more akin to the Duke and the Dauphin. Which is to say, an ace con artist.
Queasy about Bodies Used for Medicine
The sting videos by anti-abortion activists are designed to shock. But being shocked by the use of dead bodies for medical research is nothing new, as seen in the grave robbing scene in “Tom Sawyer.”
The Complex Inner Life of Teachers
Lily King’s “The English Teacher” is filled with literary lllusions, most of them thematically important.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Voice", Annabelle Lee, Beowulf, Edgar Allen Poe, Homer, Huckleberry Finn, Love Song of J. Alfred Pruforck, Odyssey, Othello, Rose for Emily, T. S. Eliot, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, William Shakespeare Comments closed
