Mark-Twain美国文学

1、马克吐温故居马克吐温的家庭The Name of Mark TwainnMark Twains real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens(萨缪尔朗霍恩克莱门斯).nMark Twain,is his pen name ,which meanswatermark two(水深两浔),was a call used by sailors on the Mississippi to warn shipmates that they were coming into shallow water. Life experiencenMark Twain was born

2、 at Florida, Missouri, a little town in Mississippi.At the death of his father in 1847, Twain ,11 years old ,had left school to be an apprentice to a printer. Then a brief but glorious career as a Mississippi River steamboat pilot ended when the river was blockaded at the beginning of the Civil War.

3、 nAfter a short term of soldiering as a Confederate volunteer, Twain went to Nevada, hoping to strike it rich in the silver fields. nWhen his mining schemes failed, he joined the staff of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, exchanged his real name, Samuel L. Clemens, for a pseudonym, “Mark Twa

4、in,” and began his career as a frontier humorist.nBecause of “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,”卡拉韦拉斯县驰名的跳蛙(1865), he is known as the master of humorist all over the country. nIn 1866, after six years as a miner, newspaper reporter, and lecturer, Twain went east responding to,he said,“

5、a call to literature of a low orderi.e. humorous.” He took with him a reputation as “the wild humorist of the Pacific Slope” and a lively imagination that had led him to turn many of his newspaper “reports” into burlesques(滑稽戏)and comic sketches(喜剧小品).The success as a writer gave Twain enough financ

6、ial security to marry Olivia Langdon(欧丽维亚兰登) in 1870. nWhile in New York, Twain was commissioned by a San Francisco paper to sail on a five-month voyage with a group of American tourists and report their confrontations with the cultural and religious shrines（圣地） of Europe and the Holy Land. nUpon hi

7、s return to America, Twain gathered his irreverent newspaper articles, revised and published them as Innocents Abroad 傻子国外旅行记(1869). Next came Roughing it艰苦岁月 (1872), a narrative of his original journey west. nHis first attempt at novel writing was The Gilded Age 镀金时代(1873), on which he collaborated

8、 with the journalist and essayist Charles Dudley Warner(与查尔斯达德利沃纳合写). The novel was a muddled failure, but it gave its name to the boom times, the post-Civil War age of unbridled individualism (放纵的个人主义)and speculation（投机买卖）, which it satirized.nThen Twain and his family moved to Hartford. Twain cont

9、inued to lecture in the United States and England. Between 1876 and 1884 he published several masterpieces.Twains nostalgic recollections of his early boyhood in Hannibal stirred him to write his “boys book” The adventures of Tom Sawyer(汤姆索亚历险记) (1876) and its sequel, The adventures of Huckleberry F

10、inn哈克贝里费恩历险记 (1884). His memories of his three years as a “cub” and master pilot on the Mississippi inspired the work Life on the Mississippi 密西西比河上(1883). nBy the time he came to write A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court 亚瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美国人(1889), with its angry satire on royalty, religion, and

11、the chivalric ideals(骑士理想)of Arthurian England（英格兰亚瑟王), his work had become more serious and critical.nBy the 1890s the amusement that had once typified his writing had been displaced by increasingly bitter attacks on the injustices of society and the folly of man. nBy the end of his life,the deaths

12、 of his wife and two daughters left him absolutely inconsolable. Some critics link these tragic events with the change of style in his later works, from an optimist and humorist(乐观的幽默大师) to an almost despairing determinist（悲观的决定论者）.nThe failure of his publishing firm and a series of bad financial in

13、vestments brought him humiliation and bankruptcy, leading him to travel throughout the world on a lecture series to pay off his debts, a long and exhausting experience he recorded with barely disguised weariness in Following the Equator赤道环行记 (1897).n In 1906 he began to record the details of much of

14、 the best and the worst of his life, portions of which appeared as his Autobiography 自传(1924), published posthumously (于死后)as was the collection entitled Letters from the Earth（地球来信） (1962), which contained the most despairing of his pronouncements and his last furious anger at the “damned human rac

15、e.”His Death Mark Twain died of illness on April 21, 1910. When he passed away, newspapers around the country declared, “The whole world is mourning.” By then, Samuel Clemens had long since ceased to be a private citizen. He had become Mark Twain, a proud possession of the American nation.Mark Twain

16、 and the Mississippi n Mark Twains adventurous boyhood had been spent on the Mississippi River. He loved the great river so much that he always went in the direction of the nearby Mississippi. Many of his great works are set in the background of the Mississippi River, such as The Adventures of Tom S

17、awyer,The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Life on the Mississippi. Mark Twains MasterpiecesMark Twains Masterpieces王子与贫儿 哈克费恩历险记 汤姆索亚利历险记 Other worksn卡拉韦拉斯县驰名的跳蛙(1867)、傻子国外旅行记(1869)、艰苦岁月(1872)、镀金时代(1873，与查尔斯达德利沃纳合写)、汤姆索耶历险记(1876)、国外流浪汉(1880)、王子与贫儿(1882)、密西西比河上(1883)、哈克贝里费恩历险记(1884)、亚瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美

18、国人(1889)、傻瓜威尔逊(1894)、贞德传(1896)。他去世后出版的作品有：神秘的来客(1916)、马克吐温的笔记本(1935)和自传(1959)Three Stages of Mark Twains Thought and Works 思想和创作的三个阶段思想和创作的三个阶段nactive and lively 早期（早期（1867187018671870）短篇小说，轻松嬉笑）短篇小说，轻松嬉笑的外表下严肃的社会批判的外表下严肃的社会批判; ; nfull of acid and satirical sense 中期（中期（7070年代年代9090年代）创作的鼎盛时期，年代）创作的鼎

19、盛时期，轻松的幽默转向辛辣的讽刺轻松的幽默转向辛辣的讽刺; ;npessimistic and cynic 晚期（晚期（9090年代后期）民主理想破灭后的悲年代后期）民主理想破灭后的悲观厌世观厌世. .Writing Characteristics of Mark TwainnLiterature is an art of language. Mark Twains language is artistic and like a sharp weapon without doubt. Mark Twain is famous for his humor and satire. nMark Tw

20、ains humor is based on the humor of the Western in America. nHe used a lot of colloquial idioms(口语化的方言口语化的方言土语土语) and colloquial syntax(口语化的句法口语化的句法). nHe often described persons who was innocent, simple, naive, and ignorant as his heroes or heroines.nHe used the artistic style of hyperbole(夸张夸张) on

21、 the basis of the western traditional humor and made his writing full of allegories(寓言寓言) that lay behind the humor. A Mirror of America1. “Mirror” here means a person who gives a true representation or description of the country. 2. Generally speaking, all literary giants in human history are also

22、great historians, thinkers and philosophers. Their works often reveal more truth than many political essays. 3. Mark Twain was one of these giants, and his life and works are a mirror of America of his time. nMark Twain gave pleasure - real intellectual enjoyment - to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions