A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Mark Twain

1. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Mark Twain
By Nadira Sabirova 1 PA

2. 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.

3.

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”.

4. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889

5. 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.

6. 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

7.

8.

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.

9.

10. 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)