Arts & Entertainment
At Darien Library: “As Webster Is My Witness”: Language, Lies and Laughter in Mark Twain – A Lecture by Mark Schenker
On Tuesday, November 30 at 7 p.m., Mark Schenker of Yale University will present: "As Webster Is My Witness": Language, Lies and Laughter in Mark Twain at Darien Library.
Dr. Schenker will survey the ways in which speaking and mis-speaking are used to convey the satire and seriousness of Mark Twain's fiction.
In Chapter 26 of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884), Huck tells a series of outright lies about his having lived in England and met the King.
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His listener responds with skepticism and requires Huck to place his hand on a big book and swear that he is telling the truth. Huck notices that the book in question is not a Bible but "nothing but a dictionary," and so he makes his false oath, confident that technically he is not perjuring himself.
This scene of Huck's swearing on a dictionary is emblematic of how language itself throughout the work of Mark Twain operates as testament, as the source of Twain's various professions of belief: language as spoken speech, language as exaggeration, language as lies for comic or satiric effect.
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Mark Schenker has been at Yale College since 1990. He is currently an associate dean of the College and dean of academic affairs. Born and raised in New York City, he received his Ph.D. in English Literature from Columbia University and has taught at Columbia, New York University, and Trinity College (Hartford). He has led book discussion series in public libraries in Connecticut for over 20 years through programs sponsored by the Connecticut Humanities Council and lectures frequently on literary topics for public audiences. He was the recipient of the 2001 Wilbur Cross Award for Outstanding Humanities Scholar, presented by the Connecticut Humanities Council.
For more information, visit darienlibrary.org or call 203-655-1234.
Darien Library is located at 1441 Post Road, Darien, Conn.
Additional parking for evening and weekend Library programs on Thorndal Circle (behind Nielsen's).
