Writing the Journey: June 1999

Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad": Ipse Dixits in the Holy Land

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Barbara Ryan
U of Missouri-Kansas City
btryan@umich.edu

This paper notes Twain's insistence, in "Innocents Abroad," on travel literature as a testamentary format. I examine Twain's use of legalistic language and his attack on a composite travel writer named "Wm. C. Grimes" to show how deeply this text probes evidentiary questions of interest to nineteenth-century Americans, including "competent" witnessing and the reliability of print reports of distant events. I conclude with a few thoughts about the ways in which Twain's critique of Grimes echoes post-bellum questions about the truth-value and provenance of the synoptic gospels, to demonstrate the full meaning of a juridical approach to texts about the area cherished by Christians as a holy place.

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Barbara Ryan
University of Missouri-Kansas City
btryan@umich.edu

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Updated May 23, 1999