Showing posts with label Birth of a Nation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Birth of a Nation. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Huck Finn, D.W. Griffith, and the Re[Birth of a Nation]al Identity



Note: This is the project that more or less earned me my diploma earlier this month. It appeals to a more literature oriented audience, which accounts for "The Birth of a Nation" being summarized while a knowledge of the novel "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is assumed.

The evaluative debate over a distinctly “American style” in nineteenth century literature was largely reflected in the cinema at the dawn of the twentieth century. This essay will profile D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is commonly regarded as among the most prevalent literary works to carry the distinction of such a style, as suggested by its lengthy and secure presence in the canon of great American literature.