ABSTRACT

Mark Twain's most complete translation of social commentary into literary burlesque is A Connecticut Yankee, and every level of the novel holds contemporary elements from the American 1890s in juxtaposition with the plot material derived from King Arthur's medieval round table. Huck Finn is Twain's most successful blending of the themes and techniques of literary comedy with a visionary hero, but Hank Morgan, the Connecticut Yankee, is the most didactic representation of Twain's social philosophy in humor. The Yankee's destruction and the destruction of his modern democratic civilization are an admission of futility that Huck Finn had been able to duck by heading out for the territories. The Yankee is a Connecticut mechanic who is crowbarred back to the sixth century during a fight and encounters, and almost masters, Arthurian England. Arthurian England is combined with nineteenth-century America in ways that cannot be thought of in "realistic" terms.