Mark Twain BI.docx

1、Mark Twain BI Mark Twain (1835-1910)A. he was the first literary giant in that he broke the narrow limits of local color and described the breadth of American experience as no one had ever done before.B. he was acclaimed as “ the true father of our national literature.” C. He has made colloquial口语的s

2、peech an accepted, respectable medium in American literature. D. he first created the American boy in American literature. E. his style of language influenced many later writers like Sherwood Anderson, Hemingway, etc.He is a mastermind of satire, humor and realism.His life:1.Brought up in the small

3、town of Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River;2.Left school at 12 because of the death of his father; 3.Once worked as a printers apprentice, a tramp printer, a silver miner, a steamboat pilot, a gold-washer, and a frontier journalist;4.Became nationally famous with “Jumping Frog”; 5.Went to

4、east where he met Howells and married; 6.Tragic events of his later life changed him and his writing a little; 7.Later been a lecturer, traveler, businessman, novelist and autobiographer;8.Led an active life in the very center of the American experiences.His Works (1)1 The Celebrated jumping Frog of

5、 Calaveras County (1865) -It is a collection of short stories from oral tales, tall tales that he heard in the west.2 Innocents Abroad (1869) 3 Roughing It (1872) 4 The Gilded Age (1873) -Written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner, the novel explored the scrupulous individualism in a world

6、of fantastic speculation and unstable values. The novel was an artistic failure, but it gives its name to the America of the corrupt post-Civil War period in which it attempted to satirize5.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) - is usually regarded as a classic book written for boys about their parti

7、cular horrors and joys. It has become the image of a peaceful small-town American boyhood for millions of people, not only in the United States but throughout the world.6 The Prince and the Paup (1881) 7 Life on the Mississippi (1883) - tells a story of his boyhood ambition to become a riverboat pil

8、ot.8 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1886)-fathered Modern American literature-The book marks the climax of Twains literary creativity. It is considered as the best book that Twain ever produced. Hemingway once described the novel the one book from which all modern American literature comes.9 A

9、Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court (1889) - a parable of colonization, Twain follows the journey of a representative of modern technology and ideas into a historically backward, feudal society.10 Puddnhead Wilson (1893) 11The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900) 12 The Mysterious Stranger (191

10、6) - These works all contain bitter attacks on the human race, or damned human race as Twain referred.13 Following the Equator (1897) 14 Autobiography (1924) 15 American Claimant 美国的债权人16 Disgraceful persecution of a Boy 对一个孩子的卑鄙迫害17 Goldsmiths Friend Abroad again 哥尔斯密的朋友再次出国18 The Treaty with China

11、 和中国签订的条约19 To the Person Sitting in Darkness 给坐在黑暗中的人 His views and themes 1. Mark Twain is a part of America. The two, in many ways, are inseparable.2. He was essentially an affirmative writer, but toward the latter life, he changed from an optimist and humorist to an almost determinist.3. As a so

12、cial critic, all his life, he loved life, people, freedom and justice, felt a pride in human dignity and advocated brotherhood of man. He hated tyranny and iniquity, despised meanness and cruelty.His Style1) His style was precise, enviable, and well-crafted. 2) His characters were vivid, fallible an

13、d funny.3) Vernacular Language4) Local ColorTwain as a local colorist 乡土文学 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 cus

14、toms, 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. His use of local color and historical setting to illuminate contemporary soci

15、ety has served a creative inspiration for generations of writers to come.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 ungrammati

16、cal, which is typical of the spoken 1anguage. And Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonists in their everyday life. Whats 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 coloris

17、m. 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

18、 of the country. His style of language was later taken up by his descendants, Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway, and influenced generations of letters. His humor Mark Twains humor is remarkable, too. It is fun to read Twain to begin with, for most of his works tend to be funny, containing some

19、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 h

20、umor 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

21、 social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism.The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnPortrait of Huckleberry Finn The novel begins with the description of how Window Douglas attempts to civilize Huck and ends with him deciding not to let it happen again at the hands of Aunt Sally. The climax ari

22、ses with Hucks inner struggle on the Mississippi, when Huck is polarized by the two opposing forces between his heart and his head, between his affection for Jim and the laws of the society against those who help slaves escape. Hucks final decision - to fo1low his own good-hearted moral impulse rath

23、er than conventional village morality - amounts to a vindication of what Mark Twain called the damned human race, damned for its comfortable hypocrisies, its thoroughgoing dishonesties, and its pervasive cruelties. With the eventual victory of his moral conscience over his social awareness, Huck gro

24、ws.magic power with languageHis words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language. His characters speak with a strong accent. Whats more, different characters from different literary or cultural ba

25、ckgrounds talk differently. Speaking in vernacular, a wild and uneducated Huck, running away from civilization for his freedom, is vividly brought to life. With his great mastery and effective use of vernacular, Mark Twain has made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the li

26、terary history of the country.Humor A great deal of his humor is characterized by puns, straight-faced exaggeration, repetition, anti-climax, tricks of travesty滑稽模仿 and invective. (abusive language; vituperation)谴责的或谩骂的语言；责骂The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn，a sequel to Tom Sawyer, gives a -true and

27、 vivid picture of the American social evils before the American Civil War, criticizes and exposes the crimes of slavery and racial discrimination, satirizes the hypocrisy of the religion and clearly embodies the writers democratic ideal. The novel reflects the writers unique artistic style with humo

28、rous touches, fine psychological descriptions, life-like images of the heroes and lively language. The river is a symbol of freedom and the shore a symbol of bondage. As the masterpiece of the writer, it is really an immortal masterpiece in American literature. The Gilded Age was written in collabor

29、ation with Charles Dudley Warner. It pictures the United States as becoming corrupt because it sacrificed the true ideas of virtue and happiness for destructive notions. In short, the third quarter of the 19th century in the United States was not a golden, but a gilded age.Language styleMark Twain s

30、hows his magic power with language in his novels, the use of vernacular. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language. I. Mark Twain (1835-19l0) Mark Twain is a great literary giant of Ame

31、rica, 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 worlds view of America and made a more extensive combination of American folk humor and serious literature than pre

32、vious writers had ever done.Mark Twains life and writing: 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. T