Word: authorities
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...down the Mississippi River liberated from the constraints and judgments of society. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is undoubtedly a classic of American literature, but too often literary scholarship tries to defend every aspect of a masterpiece as a successful aesthetic decision of the author. Sometimes reading a novel afresh, years after its publication, reveals flaws that the literary world has learned to overlook...
...naïve narrator is a recurring trope in comic novels, which allows the author to objectively examine the hypocrisies and inconsistencies of society through the eyes of a figure who is not burdened by social preconceptions. But Twain conveniently adapts a narrator with a flexible naiveté, who can alternatively be ignorant of society’s sins and also knowingly participate in them. The consistently shifting innocence of Huck’s personality heightens the comedy throughout the novel, but also sacrifices the some of its substance...
...feel that all my wishes center in the grave,” she wrote in her diary. To this haunting episode, O’Brien attributes Louisa’s determination to complete her epic journey alone, three years later. But it also allows the author to complicate his impression of John Quincy Adams, who for once grew distracted from politics, and grieved deeply for his daughter. O’Brien quotes from a letter written to his mother, Abigail Adams, in which he describes the child’s sufferings as so severe that “the sight...
...composed his greatest works in his youth, but continued writing through his old age. The deterioration of poetic talent must be one of the greatest fears of an aging poet. Although Derek Walcott—who turned eighty this past January—is a Nobel Laureate and the author of over twenty published volumes of poetry, the dread of losing his poetic ability permeates “White Egrets,” his newest collection. He writes, “If it is true that my gift has withered, that there’s little left...
Josh Ozersky is a James Beard Award-winning food writer and the author of The Hamburger: A History. You can listen to his weekly show on the Heritage Radio Network and read his column on home cooking on Rachael Ray's website. He is currently at work on a biography of Colonel Sanders...