A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889
novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The work is a very early example of time travel in literature, anticipating by six years H. G. Wells'
The Time Machine of 1895 (however, unlike Wells,
Twain does not give any real explanation of his protagonist's travelling in time). Some early editions are entitled A
Yankee at the Court of King Arthur.
Plot
Tale of a "curious stranger"
The novel tells the tale of Hank Morgan, a 19th century citizen of Hartford,
Connecticut who awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early
medieval England at the time of the legendary King Arthur in AD 528, who is described as English despite mythology which details his Celtic roots.[citation needed]
The story itself begins in a third and first person narrative in Warwick Castle, where a man details his recollection of a tale told to him by a "curious stranger" who is
personified as a Knight through his simple language and familiarity with ancient armor.[1]
After a brief tale of Sir Launcelot of Camelot and his role
in slaying two giants from the third-person narrative, a man named Hank Morgan enters and, after being given whiskey by the
narrator, he is persuaded to reveal more of his story. Described through first-person narrative as a man familiar of the
firearms and machinery trade, Hank is a man who had reached a
level of super-intendant due to his proficiency in firearms manufacturing, with two thousand subordinates. He describes the
beginning of his tale by illustrating details a disagreement with his subordinates, where he sustained a head injury from a
"crusher" to the head caused by a man named "Hercules"
using crowbar.[2]
After passing out from the blow, Hank describes waking up underneath an oak tree in a rural area of
Camelot where a Knight questions him for trespassing upon his land, and after establishing rapport, leads him towards Camelot castle. [3]
Hank is ridiculed at King Arthur's court for his strange appearance and dress, and sentenced by King Arthur's court (and
particularly by the magician Merlin) to burn at the stake. By a miraculous stroke of luck, the date of the burning coincides with
a historical solar eclipse in the year 528, which Hank had learned about in his own time.
Recalling this fact, Hank uses it to convince the King and commoners that he possesses great power, by correctly predicting the
eclipse of the sun at the moment when he is about to be burned at the stake. Following this act, he is liberated and given the
position of principal minister to the King, and treated by all with utmost fear and awe. His celebrity brings him to be known by
a new title, elected by the people: "The Boss." Hank is seen as not a man, but a being of strange and mysterious powers.
Anachronisms
Hank uses his comprehensive technological knowledge and Yankee ingenuity to modernize the
superstitious, brutal and ignorant old English society and advance himself. While successfully starting a patent office, printing
newspapers, mounting soap advertisements on knights and initiating industrialization,
Hank's efforts are eventually undone by entrenched power embodied in the Roman Catholic
Church. Modern society's own darker side is finally exhibited as Hank and his cadre of specially indoctrinated teenagers use gatling guns and electric fences to butcher tens of thousands of knights from an
entrenched bunker. With Hank's technologies expunged, Merlin,
portrayed previously as an utter charlatan, somehow transports him back to the present.
With its anachronistic technology, such as the telegraph, bicycle, etc., the book has a claim to being the first
steampunk tale. It is also recognized as among the first time travel stories.
Commentary
While parts of the book poke fun at contemporary society, the main thrust is a satire of
romanticized ideas of chivalry and of the idealization of the Middle Ages such as was common in 19th century literature, most notably perhaps in the novels of
Sir Walter Scott, for whom Twain had a particular dislike, blaming his romanticization of
battle for the decision of the Southern United States to fight the
American Civil War.[citation needed] For example, the book portrays the medieval English as being very gullible,
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 he
cannot see Sagramor for effect to the audience.
Critic Brian Attebery feels Twain's brutal social commentary undermines the two-fold satire of the story:
The very bludgeoning to which the ideals are exposed makes the satire less than effective. Hank describes himself as void of
sentiment and poetry, acts in a rather Philistine manner, and despite being swept centuries
into the past and across the ocean, refuses to believe that magic exists. Being unwilling to yield, he is unable to compromise
with Camelot on anything, leading to chaos, and in the end, though he characterizes Merlin as a 'doddering old fool', Merlin is
able to send him back with a few passes in the air.
—
Brian Attebery, The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature.[4]
Creation of a science fiction sub-genre
Twain's book precipitated an entire sub-genre of science fiction, characterized by the depiction of a modern time traveller
arriving at an ancient society, anachronistically introducing modern technologies and institutions and completely changing its
character.
The best-known example is L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall in which an American archaeologist of the 1930s arrives at Ostrogothic Italy and manages to prevent the Dark
Ages by introducing printing and other modern inventions. Leo Frankowski wrote the
Conrad Stargard series where a 20th century Pole arrives
in 13th century Poland and by rapid industrialization manages to defeat the Mongol invasion, as
well as completely annihilating the Teutonic Knights.
Poul Anderson presented an antithesis in his story The Man Who Came Early, where a modern American who finds himself in Viking Iceland fails to introduce modern technologies despite being an
intelligent, competent and well-trained engineer, and finds that in a 10th century environment 10th century technologies work
best. Another antithesis was presented by Ford Madox Ford in his Ladies Whose Bright Eyes, where the time traveller, in spite of being a trained engineer,
lacks the technical know-how to develop modern technology from scratch in medieval society. After some half-hearted attempts he
"goes native" and make a credible effort at becoming a knight.
A new twist was introduced by S. M. Stirling in the Nantucket books and Eric Flint in the 1632 series, where it is not a single modern individual but a whole modern community (American in both
cases) which is transported into the past -- respectively to the Bronze Age and to the
Germany of the Thirty Years' War -- correspondingly
increasing the plausibility of their ability to influence the past.
In the view of some, this entire subgenre shares with Twain's original book the widespread mindset which regarded
Western culture of its time as inherently superior to all other cultures, past and
present. Specifically, it was asserted that Stirling's "Nantuckars" are depicted as embarking on colonial empire-building in the Bronze Age.
Film, television and theatrical adaptations
Since the beginning of the 20th century, this famous story has been adapted many times
to stage, feature-length motion pictures, and animated
cartoons. It was made into the 1927 musical, A Connecticut Yankee, by
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. A 1931 film, A Connecticut Yankee, starred
Will Rogers. A 1949 musical film featured Bing Crosby
and Rhonda Fleming, with music by Jimmy Van
Heusen and Victor Young. In 1970 the book was adapted into a 74-minute animated TV
special directed by Zoran Janjic.
It has also inspired many variations and parodies such as the 1979 Bugs Bunny special, A
Connecticut Rabbit In King Arthur's Court and Disney's Unidentified
Flying Oddball. In 1995 Walt Disney Studios readapted the book, into the
feature film A Kid in King Arthur's Court. As the title suggests,
the protagonist of the Disney film is considerably younger than Twain's original character. In 1998, Whoopi Goldberg starred as the protagonist in A Knight in Camelot, as a physicist who is somehow
accidentally sent back in time during an experiment gone bad. She procures the people's respect after predicting a
solar eclipse by checking her computer, which was sent back in time with her along with
other "convenient" things in her backpack. In 2001, actor and comedian Martin Lawrence
portrayed Jamal/Skywalker, an American miniature golf park employee who goes back in time to 14th century England in the film
Black Knight. Additionally, Twain's novel was extrapolated by Sam Raimi in
the third installment of the Evil Dead film trilogy, Army of Darkness.
The BBC TV series Life on Mars revolves around a similar premise to the
novel. In the series the lead character, Sam Tyler played by actor John Simm wakes up after a 2006 car accident to find himself in 1973. The series explores Sam's attempts to
adjust to life in the past and his quest to discover why he is there. The sixth
episode of the first season features a character who refers to feeling like "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"
to which Sam sympathizes.
See also
References
- ^ Twain, Mark., Clemens, Samuel. (2007), p1 -- "It was in Warwick Castle
that I came across the curious stranger ...He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with
ancient armor, and the restfulness of his company As the stranger recalls tales of Sir
Launcelot another man enters the castle and, through a first-person narrative establishes himself"
- ^ Twain, Mark.,Clemens, Samuel. (2007), p2 -- "It was during a
misunderstanding conducted with crowbars with a fellow we used to call Hercules. He laid me out with a crusher alongside the head
that made everything crack"
- ^ Twain, Mark., Clemens, Samuel. (2007), p2 -- "At the end of an hour we
saw a far-away town sleeping in a valley by a winding river; and beyond it on a hill, a vast gray fortress, with towers and
turrets, the first I had ever seen out of a picture."
- ^ Brian Attebery. The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature, pp.
80-81. ISBN 0-253-35665-2.
External links
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Works by Mark Twain (Samuel
Clemens) |
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