Abstract
In meditating on Twain's white-suited body lying in its coffin, William Dean Howells called him "sole, incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature." The phrase is appropriate indeed. Lincoln brought the West, grave yet common diction, an interwoven comic and tragic sense, faith in democracy and skepticism about human nature, into the great political and mystical task of defining, nurturing, and finally saving the Union. Twain understood Lincoln's language and vision. What Lincoln brought to politics, Twain brought to the nurturing of an American voice in literature. He celebrated our independence from Europe, admonished our expansionism in the last years of the old century and the first years of the new, and remained quintessentially American--as American, we might say, as Lincoln.
Journal Title
Iowa Journal of Communication
Volume
25
Issue
3
First Page
109
Last Page
112
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Werge, Thomas
(1993)
"for Samuel Clemens,"
Iowa Journal of Communication: Vol. 25:
No.
3, Article 35.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ijc/vol25/iss3/35
Copyright
©1993 Iowa Communication Association
