Quotes from Joe B. Fulton

Incorrectly, many critics see the target as the text itself, when frequently the parody champions the cause of the religious text. Twain adheres to the genre in order to create a parody of it, frequently making the original the "hero of the parody," in Bakhtin's words. p.5

Called to be a writer, but not a minister, Twain depicted his work as an author in theological terms, humorously describing himself as preacher, prophet, and even saint. Twain's work frequently reminds one of the Menippean satirist, who drew on traditional genres for their burlesques and "ostensibly improvised sermons," as Gilbert Highest notes, even while developing their own views in response to their opponents.

One can only say this: Calvinism is the order "left standing" in Twains' literary life and he respond on the level of form and content to the ideas found in that stern tradition. p.191