Twain, Mark
Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835–1910),American writer, journalist, and lecturer. Twain specifically exploits Shakespeare in pieces such as his fragmentary burlesque of Hamlet (1881), in which a travelling book-salesman, Basil Stockmar, attempts to present the Ghost with a sample copy; his pornographic pseudo-diary of a court cup-bearer 1601; or, Conversation, as it Was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors (1882), including a character called ‘Master Shakspur’; and Is Shakespeare Dead? (1909), a reflection upon art and immortality, driven by uncertainty that either Shakespeare or Bacon could ever have produced the works. Twain read Shakespeare's plays in preparation for The Prince and the Pauper (1881), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) contains incidents and characters deliberately reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and...
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