Classics and the Western Canon discussion

This book and author probably have had as much written and said about them as almost any other American author and book. Talk particularly about resources which you have found especially useful or maybe controversial!

Assume that most resources posted here will likely have spoilers, so be careful if you are still on a first reading of the book and don't want plot details revealed.

Kind of off topic. Lincoln's essential second inaugural is discussed in Eric Foner's new book. I offer this both for its relevance to Huckleberry Finn and for the literary sophistication.

http://www.theroot.com/views/book-exc...

From the same book, an excerpt about the emancipation proclamation.

http://www.theroot.com/views/book-exc...

Twp resources I found in our library, might be in yours. Plus one other resource.

1. DVD, Mark Twain, PBS program directed by Ken Burns. Haven't started it yet, but most of Ken Burns's work has been very good.

2. Mark Twain, Lives and Legacies, by Larzer Ziff. There are plenty of bios of Twain out, but most of them I found are pretty lengthy. This is fairly short - 135 pages -- so looks manageable within the confines of this discussion. Again, just got it, haven't started it yet. Will let you know.

3. the Teaching Company has a full course, 24 lectures, on Twain. I've started listening to it, it's quite good. But unfortunately not on sale, and they wouldn't give me a special deal for members of this group, so might be something to try to get on ILL if you're interested.

The PBS program is quite good. Well filmed. Some beautiful shots of the Mississippi. It's a a bit haigiographic more than a careful analysis, but not particularly diminished by that.

The tension between Sam Clemens and Mark Twain is one I feel we should keep in our minds as we go through the book.

Netflix also has the Hal Holbrook one man show. It's pretty good, if someone wants to see what Twain on the lecture circuit was like.

From The university of Virginia's excellent Mark Twain site. A page about minstrel shows. At the bottom of the page is an example of an Interlocuter arguing with Bones against which one can analyze the structure of the King Sollerman discussion.

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton...

Here are some links that provide historical context for Huckleberry Finn. The period between roughly 1835 and 1885 (when the book was published) is an important one. The nation grew in size, population and international stature. The indigenous population was started well on its way to genocidal near extinction.

Revolutions in transportation (the transcontinental railroad) and in communications (the invention of the telegraph) transformed American life. Noted historian Daniel Walker Howe asserts that, “Their consequences rivaled, and probably exceeded in importance, those of the ‘information highway’ of our own times.” Hyperbole? Perhaps. But indisputably, the reality of America in the years Twain wrote the books Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn bore little resemblance to what it was in the years he was writing about.

Unfortunately, the enormity of the Civil War and war exhaustion in the north obscures the terror campaign in the south that led to the collapse of Reconstruction and the institution of Jim Crow Laws—laws that, in effect, virtually re-enslaved blacks by denying them fundamental rights and arbitrarily criminalizing the most insignificant acts.
In Huckleberry Finn, Twain is writing in the years following this collapse about the years that preceded the war.

As a starting point for those wishing to review key events, here are Wikipedia links for major events that shaped the growing nation.

1830-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_R...
1844: Invention of electrical telegraph machine-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegrap...
1845-1848-- Mexican War-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.-Mex...
1845—Wilmot Proviso prohibits slavery in territories captured in Mexican War-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmot_P...
1848—Treaty terms imposed on Mexico brings vast amounts of territory into the US-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmot_P...
1849—California Gold Rush brings abrupt population increase west (including Mark Twain) in search of fortune and insures a conflict over the status of what must quickly become a state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californ...
1850—Compromise of 1850 includes the Fugitive Slave law, which says that runaway slaves must be arrested even in free states. (Like Illinois.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromi...
1854: Kansas Nebraska Act repeals the 1820 Missouri Compromise and allows settlers in those territories to determine if they will enter Union as free or slave states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas%E...

1865-1877 Reconstruction Era. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromi...
1869 Transcontinental Rail Road completed. Huge implications for the Mississippi River culture of Twain’s memory.

Interactive file showing a changing map of slave state vs free state at key times. Really makes visual the importance of the western territories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_...

Zeke wrote: "Here are some links that provide historical context for Huckleberry Finn. The period between roughly 1835 and 1885 (when the book was published) is an important one. The nation grew in size, popu..."

I hope that in the discussion threads you will help us see some of the aspects of HF that reflect these changes. So far I haven't seen them as clearly as I did in, say, Middlemarch, where the developments in medicine, railroads, and other areas were a significant plot element. But I'm sure there must be some aspects of HF that reflect these changes that I'm not noticing (other, of course, than the changing attitude toward slavery).

I posted these more as a resource for international readers or others without much interest in history. As I said these decades were crucial ones in determining, for better or worse, modern America. Indeed, as some say, the Civil War is the real American Revolution and the birth of the nation.

That said, your point about Middlemarch is a good one. I don't think HF is attempting to do the same thing as MM.

Which raises the very interesting, and so far, for me, elusive question: What exactly is HF trying to do? Is it just satire about a time and place? Is it a broader indictment of human nature? Or an affirmative story of moral growth?

Despite my posting these historical links,and despite the realism of the details and plot, I think the heart of the story may exist outside of a specific time and place.

I'd welcome you, or anyone else, pushing back against me on this. It's something I've been thinking about for weeks without coming to a firm conclusion yet.

What is HF? Very good question Zeke. I think the comments of Mike and Patrice in the HF through chapter 11 thread, throw some interesting light upon this question. I'm referring in particular to comments #201 and 203.

I agree with you about Mike's and Patrice's comments being useful. The problem for me, is that's it's slippery. It feels like one thing, and then it feels like another. For example, Patrice is spot on about the Biblical allusions; but why do they virtually disappear in the second half of the book?

I'm really starting to think that Time is a significant theme. That seems to fit with the river, with a child who has to be a man, with the emphasis on death, etc. But I can't flesh it out. Perhaps someone else can.

Obviously there are many facets to HF. The one that stands out for me is this:

Even though Twain was writing in an era where racial prejudice was still not only prevalent but quite open, the most noble, the most human, the best person, is Jim. For all his ignorance of more sophisticated things, his innate kindness; his ability to reason logically; his unrepressed love for people of both races, family or not, is inspiring.