Tag: Satan

A Tragic Spring For Joe Twichell

Posted on by Dwayne Eutsey

Saturday, April 21, marked the 108th anniversary of Mark Twain’s passing. For Twain, whose final decade was wracked by overwhelming bereavement, the promise of death’s release was something welcome. By the end of his life, Twain’s sentiments toward life and death were akin to Satan’s musings in Letters From the Earth (1909): Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by […]

Ah Shucks, Satan!: Mark Twain’s Style, Quantified

Posted on by Matt Seybold

Mark Twain was an immensely popular author. Based on this apparent truth, it has been convenient to regard him as populist as well. Contemporaneous critics dismissed him as “merely a humorist,” a characterization which he clearly internalized. Even those who praise his literary style often, like his friend William Dean Howells, invoke the slightly backhanded adjective natural. “Mr. Clemens is the first writer to use in extended writings the fashion we […]