Vern:

Maybe you can tell this from the tenor of the discussions of academics on
the list--but I wouldn't say that any one person has *the* "accepted"
line on Mark Twain.  Academics make their living by, at best, building
on what other critics have to say and, at worst, disagreeing with everyone
else they can think of.

Sometimes we take it too far--one of my professors in grad school cautioned
us about arguing with dead people--or at least, arguing with them in
print.

Bernard DeVoto was not only one of the grandfathers of Mark Twain criticism,
but also one of the pioneers in "American" criticism as well.  He was
a prolific editor of texts for the "trade" (as opposed to the academic)
market; for example, I have an edition of the journals of Lewis and Clark
that DeVoto edited.

DeVoto took a basically historical and sociological approach to Mark Twain
criticism--as opposed to the more psychological approach of VanWyck Brooks.
He's really more akin to the historical and sociological critics of today
than are other scholars of that time period, but the fact is--at least in
my opinion--that different generations of people see texts in different
ways.

A truism of literary criticism is that every generation needs to come up
with its own interpretations of the "texts" and so DeVoto, while you
do still need to read him to get a picture of the criticism, is pretty
out of date.

Who's "accepted" right now?  I guess Henry Nash Smith, though he's recently
deceased, would still have to claim the title of leading Mark Twain scholar?
Louis Budd is another name that pops to mind--Alan Gribben, another.

I've always liked David E. E. Sloane's work.

I don't know, though, what do the rest of you think about the leading
Twain scholars?

Susan Reed