marktwain(英文简介)

Mark Twain

Mark

Twain

(1835

–

19l0)

is

a

great

literary

giant

of

America,

whom

H.

L.

Mencken

considered

“the

true

father

of

our

national

literature.”

With

works

like

Adventure

of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and Life on the Mississippi (1883) Twain shaped the

world’s

view

of

America

and

made

a

more

extensive

combination

of

American

folk

humor

and serious literature than previous writers had ever done.

1. Brief Introduction to the Author

Mark

Twain,

Pen

name

of

Samuel

Langhorne

Clemens,

was

born

on

November

30,

1835,

in Missouri, and grew up in the river town of Hannibal. After his father died, he

began to seek his own fortune .He once worked as a journeyman printer, a steamboat

pilot, a newspaper colunist and as a deadpan lecturer. Twain’s writing took the

form

of

humorous

journalism

of

the

time,

and

it

ennabled

him

to

master

the

technique

of narration.

Twain

grew

up

in

Hannibal,

Missouri,

which

provided

the

setting

for

Huckleberry

Finn

and

Tom

Sawyer.

After

an

apprenticeship

with

a

printer,

he

worked

as

a

typesetter

and contributed articles to his older brother Orion’s newspaper. He later became

a

riverboat

pilot

on

the

Mississippi

River

before

heading

west

to

join

Orion

in

Nevada.

He

referred humorously

to

his

singular

lack of

success

at

mining, turning

to

journalism

for

the

Virginia

City

Territorial

Enterprise.

In

1865,

his

humorous

story,

“The

Celebrated

Jumping

Frog

of

Calaveras

County”

was

published,

based

on

a

story

he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp California where he had spent some time as

a

miner.

The

short

story

brought

international

attention,

even

being

translated

to

classic

Greek.

His

wit

and

satire,

in

prose

and

in

speech,

earned

praise

from

critics

and

peers,

and

he

was

a

friend

to

presidents,

artists,

industrialists,

and

European

royalty.

Though Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he

invested

in

ventures

that

lost

a

great

deal

of

money,

notably

the

Paige

Compositor,

which

failed

because

of

its

complexity

and

imprecision.

In

the

wake

of

these

financial

setbacks

he

filed

for

protection

from

his

creditors

via

a

bankruptcy

filing,

and with the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers eventually overcame his financial

troubles. Twain chose to pay all his pre-bankruptcy creditors in full, though he

had no responsibility to do this under the law.

Twain was born shortly after a visit

by Halley’s Comet, and

he predicted that

he

would

“go

out

with

it,”

too.

He

died

the

day

following

the

comet’s

subsequent

return.

He

was

lauded

as

the

“greatest

American

humorist

of

his

age,”

and

Will

iam

Faulkner called Twain “the father of American literature.”

2. Mark Twain’s major works

In

l865,

he

pub1ished

his

frontier

tale

“The

Celebrated

Jumping

Frog

of

Calaveras

County,”

which

brought

him

recognition

from

a

wider

public.

But

his

full

literary career began to blossom in 1869 with a travel book Innocents Abroad, an

account

of

American

tourists

in

Europe

which

pokes

fun

at

the

pretentious,

decadent

and undemocratic Old World in a satirical tone. Mark Twain’s best works were

produced when he was in the prime of his life. All these masterworks drew upon the

scenes

and

emotions

of

his

boyhood

and

youth.

The

first

among

these

books

is

Roughing

It

(1872),

in

which

Twain

describes

a

journey

that

works

its

way

farther

west.

Life

on

the

Mississippi

tells

a

story

of

his

boyhood

ambition

to

become

a

riverboat

pilot.

Two of the best books during this period are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

and

Adventures

of

Huckleberry

Finn.

The

former

is

usually

regarded

as

a

classic

book

written for boys about their particular horrors and joys, while the latter, being

a

boy’s

book

specially

written

for

the

adults,

is

Twain’s

most

representative

work,

describing

a

journey

down

the

Mississippi

undertaken

by

two

fugitives,

Huck

and

Jim.

Their

episodic

set

of

encounters

presents

a

sample

of

the

social

world

from

the

bank

of the river that runs through the heart of the country.

His

social

satire

is

The

Gilded

Age,

written

in

collaboration

with

Charles

Dudley

Warner. The novel explored the scrupulous individualism in a world of fantastic

speculation and unstable values, and gave its name to the get-rich-quick years of

the

post-

Civil

War

era.

Twain’s

dark

view

of

the

society

became

more

self

-evident

in

the

works

published

later

in

his

life.

In

A

Connecticut

Yankee

in

King

Arth

ur’s

Court

(1889),

a

parable

of

colonialization.

A

similar

mood

of

despair

permeates

The

Tragedy

of

Pudd’nhead

Wilson

(1894),

which

shows

the

disastrous

effects

of

slavery

on

the

victimizer

and

the

victim

alike

and

reveals

to

us

a

Mark

Twain

whose

conscience

as

a

white

Southerner

was

tormented

by

fear

and

remorse.

By

the

turn

of

the

century,

with

the

publication

of

The

Man

that

Corrupted

Hadleyburg

(l900)

and

The

Mysterious

Stranger (1916), the

change in Mark Twain

from

an optimist to an almost

despairing

pessimist

could

be

felt

and

his

cynicism

and

disillusionment

with

what

Twain

referred

to regularly as the “damned human race” became obvious.

3. The Characteristics of Mark Twain’s Writing Style

1) Twain as a local colorist

Twain is also known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life

through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living

in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects,

costumes and so on. Consequently, the rich material of his boyhood experience on

the Mississippi became the endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississippi

valley and the West became his major theme. Unlike James and Howe1ls, Mark Twain

wrote about the lower-class people, because they were the people he knew so we1l

ancl

their

1ife

was

the

one

he

himself

had

lived.

Moreover

he

successfully

used

local

color and historical settings to i1lustrate and shed light on the contemporary

society.

2) His use of vernacular

Another fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use

of vernacular. His words are col1oquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his

sentence

structures

are

simp1e,

even

ungrammatical,

which

is

typical

of

the

spoken

1anguage. And Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonists in

their

everyday

life.

What’s

more,

his

characters,

confined

to

a

particular

region

and to a particular historical moment, speak with a strong accent, which is true

of his 1ocal colorism. Besides, different characters from different literary or

cultural

backgrounds

talk

differently,

as

is

the

case

with

Huck,

Tom,

and

Jim.

Indeed,

with his great mastery and effective use of vernacular, Twain has made colloquial

speech an accepted, respectable 1iterary medium in the literary history of the

country. His style of language was later taken up by his descendants, Sherwood

Anderson and Ernest Hemingway, and influenced generations of letters.

3) His humor

Mark Twain’s humor is remarkable, too. It is fun to read Twain to begin with,

for

most

of

his

works

tend

to

be

funny,

containing

some

practical

jokes,

comic

details,

witty remarks, etc., and some of them are actually tall ta1es. By considering his

experience as a newspaperman, Mark Twain shared the popu1ar image of the American

funny

man

whose

punning,

facetious,

irreverenl

articles

filled

the

newspapers,

and

a great deal of his humor is characterized by puns, straight-faced exaggeration,

repetition, and anti-climax, let alone tricks of travesty and invective. However,

his

humor

is

not

only

of

witty

remarks

mocking

at

small

things

or

of

farcical

elements

making people laugh, but a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social

injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism.

4. Huckleberry Finn

1) What is the book about