《美国文学》教学课件locol color

1、Chapter 9 Local Colorism * Mark Twain I. Local Colorism (p. 130-132)1. Local Colorism is defined by Hamlin Garland in his Crumbling Idols as having “such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native.” Garlands “texture” refe

2、rs to the elements which characterize a local culture, elements such as speech, customs, and mores peculiar to one particular place. And his “background” covers physical setting and those distinctive qualities of landscape which condition human thought and behavior.2. The ultimate aim of the local c

3、olorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside.Chapter 9 Local Colorism * Mark Twain3. Local colorism or Regionalism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early 1870s. It did not cease to be a dominant

4、 fashion until the turn of the 20th century. It formed an important part of the realistic movement. 4. The appearance of Bret Hartes “The Luck of Roaring Camp” in 1868 marked a significant development in the brief history of local color fiction.5. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting

5、 and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life.6. The representative figures are such as Sarah Orne Jewett (Deephaven about coastal Maine), Kate Chopin (Bayou Folk, The Awakening ab

6、out Lousiana), Thomas Nelson Page (about the South), Harmlin Garland, Bret Harte, and, of course, Mark Twain.7. It greatly affected the later giant such as Willa Cather, Steinbeck and Faulkner.Other Definitions Local Colorism or Regionalism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s a

7、nd early 1870s in America. It may be defined as the careful attention in speech, dress or behavior peculiar to a geographical locality. The ultimate aim of the local colorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside. The social

8、 and intellectual climate of the country provided a stimulating milieu for the growth of local color fiction in America. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an e

9、ye on the truthful color of local life. They formed an important part of the realistic movement. Although it lost its momentum toward the end of the 19th century, the local spirit continued to inspire and fertilize the imagination of author. Local Colorism was a literary trend belonging to Realism.

10、It refers to the detailed representation in prose fiction of the setting, dialect, customs, dress and ways of thinking and feeling which are distinctive of a particular region. After the Civil War a number of American writers exploited the literary possibilities of local color in various parts of Am

11、erica. The most famous representative of local colorism should be Mark Twain who took his hometown near the Mississippi as the typical setting of nearly all his novels. Major Local ColoristsGarland, Harte the west Harte: The Luck of Roaring Camp 咆哮营的幸运儿Garland: Main-travelled Roads 大路条条Eggleston Ind

12、iana The Hoosier Schoolmaster 山区校长Mrs. Stowe Old Town Folks 老城的人们Jewett Maine Deephaven 深深拥有Chopin Louisiana Bayou Folk路易斯安娜移民, A Night in Acadie爱克迪之夜, The Awakening觉醒Woolson: Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches处处城堡：乡村湖景札记 Hariot Beecher StoweSarah Orne JewettKate ChopinThomas Nelson PageHamlin Ga

13、rlandThomas EgglestoneBret HarteGeorge Washington CableAlice Dunbar NelsonCharles W. ChesnuttChapter 9 Local Colorism * Mark TwainII. Mark Twain (1835-1910)Pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens1. Literary Statusleading figure of local colorism/language reformer of English novelNovelist, humorist, lec

14、turer, journalist, literary and cultural criticmonumental figure in the development of western novel2. Life and Career:Born in Florida and brought up in the small town of Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River (a slave state then)born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Halleys Co

15、met in 1835.He was twelve when his father died and he had to leave school. He was successively a printers apprentice, a tramp printer, a silver miner, a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi, and a frontier journalist in Nevada and California.With the publication of his frontier tale, “The celebrated J

16、umping Frog of Calaveras County”, Twain became nationally famous.His first novel The Gilded Age (with Charles Dudley )was an artistic failure, but it gave its name to the America of the post-bellum period for.Printers apprentice - self-taught - Steam-boat pilot married Olivia Lanton - Susy, Clara, J

17、ean, his three daughters received honorary doctorate degree from Oxford University in 1907 - Twain outlived Jean and Susy. Olivias death in 1904 and Jeans death on December 24, 1909 deepened his gloom died in 1910, one day after Halleys Comets closest approach to EarthChapter 9 Local Colorism * Mark

18、 TwainTwain outlived Jean and Susy. Olivias death in 1904 and Jeans death on December 24, 1909 deepened his gloom.In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying:“I came in with Halleys Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life

19、if I dont go out with Halleys Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.” His prediction was accurate Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910 in Redding, Connecticut, one day after the comets closest a

20、pproach to Earth.Upon Twains death, President William Howard Taft said:“Mark Twain gave pleasurereal intellectual enjoymentto millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come. His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of

21、 other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature.”Twain is buried in his wifes family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York, marked by a 12-foot monument, placed there by his surviving daughter, Clara.3. The differences between Howells, James, an

22、d Mark TwainAlthough Howells, James and Twain all worked for realism, there were obvious differences between them. A. In thematic terms, James wrote mostly of the upper reaches of American society; Howells concerned himself chiefly with middle class life; Mark Twain dealt largely with the lower stra

23、ta of society. B. Technically, Howells wrote in the vein of genteel realism, James pursued an “imaginative” treatment of reality or psychological realism, but Mark Twains contribution to the development of realism and to American literature as a whole was partly through his theories of localism in A

24、merican fiction, and partly through his colloquial style. 4. Mark Twains Writings 1(1867) The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (fiction) (1869) The Innocents Abroad (non-fiction travel) (1871) Mark Twains (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance (fiction) (1872) Roughing It (non-fictio

25、n) (1873) The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (fiction, made into a play) (1875) Sketches New and Old (fictional stories) (1876) Old Times on the Mississippi (non-fiction) (1876) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (fiction) (1876) A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage (fiction); (1880) A Tramp Abroad (travel) (

26、1882) The Prince and the Pauper (fiction) (1883) Life on the Mississippi (non-fiction (mainly) (1884) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (fiction) (1889) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court (fiction) 4. Mark Twains Writings 2(1893) The 1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories(1894) Tom Sawyer Ab

27、road (fiction) (1894) The Tragedy of Puddnhead Wilson (fiction) (1896) Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (fiction) (1897) How to Tell a Story and other Essays (non-fictional essays) (1897) Following the Equator (non-fiction travel) (1898) Is He Dead? (play) (1900) The Man That Corrupted Hadleybu

28、rg (fiction) (1901) The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Updated (satire) (1901) Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany (political satire) (1901) To the Person Sitting in Darkness (essay) (1904) A Dogs Tale (fiction) (1905) King Leopolds Soliloquy (political satire) (1905) The War Prayer (fiction) (1906) Wh

29、at Is Man? (essay) 4. Mark Twains Writings 3(1906) Eves Diary (fiction) (1907) Christian Science (non-fiction) (1907) Is Shakespeare Dead? (non-fiction) (1909) Captain Stormfields Visit to Heaven (fiction) (1909) Letters from the Earth (fiction, published posthumously) (1916) The Mysterious Stranger

30、 (fiction, possibly not by Twain) (1924) Mark Twains Autobiography (non-fiction) (1962) Letters from the Earth (edited by Bernard DeVoto) (1969) No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (fiction) (1985) Concerning the Jews (published posthumously) (1995) The Bible According to Mark Twain: Writings on Heaven,

31、 Eden, and the Flood (published posthumously)5. Mark Twain and his masterpiecesThe Adventure of Tom Sawyer was an immediate success as “a boys book”; its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn became his masterpiece, the one book from which, as Ernest Hemingway noted, “all modern American litera

32、ture comes.”Life on the Mississippi is another masterpiece of his.In his later works the change from an optimist and humorist to an almost despairing determinist is unmistakable. Some critics link this change with the tragic events of his later life, the failure of his investments, his fatiguing tra

33、vels and lectures in order to pay off his debts, and added to this, the death of his wife and two daughters which left him absolutely inconsolable.5. Mark Twain and his masterpiecesThe Adventures of Huckleberry FinnPlotTheme: humanism will finally winThe novel used vivid details from actual life suc

34、cessfully.Special point of view: serious social problems discussed through the narration of a little illiterate boyColloquial style: a very important contribution of this novel to American literatureFeatures of the language used in the novel: mostly Anglo-Saxon in origin, short, concrete and direct

35、in effect; sentence structure is mostly simple or compound; repetition of words; ungrammatical elementsMark Twain made the colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of America.5. Mark Twain and his masterpiecesAnother feature of the book which helps to make i

36、t famous is its language. The book is written in the colloquial style, in the general standard speech of uneducated Americans. One of Mark Twains significant contributions to American literature lies in the fact that he made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary

37、history of the country. Its influence is clearly visible in twentieth-century American literature.Sherwood Anderson was the first writer after Twain to take the vernacular as a serious way of presenting reality. Ernest Hemingway was the direct descendant of Mark Twain.William Faulkner declared, “In

38、my opinion, Mark Twain was the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs, who descended from him.”J. D. Salinger, E. A. Robinson, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings, and even T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were all influenced by him.Mark Twain was a social critic as well.5. Mark Twain and his masterpiecesMetaphor AnalysisLand: The land, in Huck Finn, largely represents the bondage and cruelty of American civil society. To Jim, the land means captivity in slave