“In a way,” observed William Marion Reedy, “1601 is to Twain's whole
works what the 'Droll Stories' are to Balzac's. It is better than the
privately circulated ribaldry and vulgarity of Eugene Field; is, indeed,
an essay in a sort of primordial humor such as we find in Rabelais,
or in the plays of some of the lesser stars that drew their light from
Shakespeare's urn. It is humor or fun such as one expects, let us say,
from the peasants of Thomas Hardy, outside of Hardy's books. And,
though it be filthy, it yet hath a splendor of mere animalism of good
spirits... I would say it is scatalogical rather than erotic, save for
one touch toward the end. Indeed, it seems more of Rabelais than of
Boccaccio or Masuccio or Aretino--is brutally British rather than
lasciviously latinate, as to the subjects, but sumptuous as regards the
language.”
Immediately upon first reading, John Hay, later Secretary of State,
had proclaimed 1601 a masterpiece. Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain's
biographer, likewise acknowledged its greatness, when he said, “1601 is
a genuine classic, as classics of that sort go. It is better than the
gross obscenities of Rabelais, and perhaps in some day to come, the
taste that justified Gargantua and the Decameron will give this literary
refugee shelter and setting among the more conventional writing of Mark
Twain. Human taste is a curious thing; delicacy is purely a matter of
environment and point of view.”
“It depends on who writes a thing whether it is coarse or not,” wrote
Clemens in his notebook in 1879. “I built a conversation which could
have happened--I used words such as were used at that time--1601. I
sent it anonymously to a magazine, and how the editor abused it and the
sender!”
“But that man was a praiser of Rabelais and had been saying, 'O that we
had a Rabelais!' I judged that I could furnish him one.”
“Then I took it to one of the greatest, best and most learned of Divines
[Rev. Joseph H. Twichell] and read it to him. He came within an ace
of killing himself with laughter (for between you and me the thing was
dreadfully funny. I don't often write anything that I laugh at myself,
but I can hardly think of that thing without laughing). That old Divine
said it was a piece of the finest kind of literary art--and David Gray
of the Buffalo Courier said it ought to be printed privately and left
behind me when I died, and then my fame as a literary artist would
last.”