馬克吐溫英文介紹.ppt

A Mirror of AmericaLETS GO I CONTENTS Second part.(His writing)1.Mark Twain and the Mississippi.2.Major Works.3.Writing Featuresthird part.(Writing style)1.Life and Writing 2.a Local Colorist3.Use of Vernacular4.Humor Fourth part.(Others)1.His Famous Words2.A Mirror of AmericaFirst part.(His exeperience)1.Early life experience2.His Marriage3.In His Middle Ages4.His Later Life5.His Death PART ONEFirst part.(His exeperience)1.Early life experience2.His Marriage3.In His Middle Ages4.His Later Life5.His Death Twains real name was Samuel Clemens.Mark Twain,which meanswatermark two,was a call used by sailors on the Mississippi to warn shipmates that they were coming into shallow water. The Name of Mark Twain Mark Twain (1835 -1910)Mark Twain was a great American writer, and he was also a famous speaker. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) was born in Florida and he was not a healthy baby. In fact, he was not expected to live through the first winter. But with his mothers tender care, he managed to survive. As a boy, he caused much trouble for his parents. He used to play jokes on all of his friends and neighbors. He didnt like to go to school, and he constantly ran away from home. Early life experienceBorn in a little town in MississippiAt 11, he lost his fatherAt 13, he stopped schoolingTramp printerSteamboat pilot on the MississippiConfederate guerrillaProspectorReporter on the far western frontier Traveler abroad His MarriageAt 34 years old he married Olivia Langdon Clemens, daughter of a New York coal magnate, a member of the countrys wealthy elite. She would be partner, editor, and fellow traveler in success and failure for the next thirty-five years. In His Middle AgesBy 1900 Twain had become Americas foremost celebrity. He was invited to attend ship launchings, anniversary gatherings, political conventions, and countless dinners. Reporters met him at every port of call, anxious to print a new quip from the famous humorist. To enhance his image, he took to wearing white suits and loved to stroll down the street and see people staring at him. His Later LifeThere are many tragic events in his later life: the failure of his investments, his fatiguing travels 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. Some critics link these tragic events with the change of style in his later works, from an optimist and humorist to an almost despairing determinist. 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, Sam Clemens had long since ceased to be a private citizen. He had become Mark Twain, a proud possession of the American nation. PART TWOSecond part.(His writing)1.Mark Twain and the Mississippi.2.Major Works.3.Writing Features Mark Twain and the MississippiMark Twain 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 Huckleberry Finn, the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Life on the Mississippi. Samuel Clemens Major WorksThe Gilded Age 鍍 金 時 代 written in collaboration with Charles Dudley WarnerLife on the Mississippi 密 西 西 比 河 上 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur s Court 亞 瑟 王 朝 里的 康 涅 狄 格 州 美 國 佬 The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug 敗 壞 了 哈 德 萊 堡 的 人The Mysterious Stranger 神 秘 的 陌 生 人 AutobiographyThese works contain bitter attacks on the human race The Innocents Abroad 傻 子 國 外 旅 行 記 Roughing It 艱 難 歲 月 Puddnhead Wilson 傻 瓜 維 爾 遜 The Prince and the Pauper 王 子 與 貧 民 American Claimant 美 國 申 請 人 Mark Twain s Writing FeaturesHabitsHe used a lot of colloquial idioms and colloquial syntax. he used colloquial language, vernacular language, dialects shortconcrete direct in effect wordssimple, even ungrammatica lsentence & structures Mark Twains Writing FeaturesHe often described persons who was innocent, simple, naive, and ignorant as his heroes or heroines. PART THREEthird part.(Writing style)1.Life and Writing2.a Local Colorist3.Use of Vernacular4.Humor Mark Twain s Life and Writing:Mark Twain 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 哈 克 貝 利 芬 歷 險 記 (1884) and Life on the Mississippi 密 西 西比 河 上 的 生 活 (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. 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 columnist and as a lecturer. Twains writing took the form of humorous journalism of the time, and it enabled him to master the technique of narration. 25% Twain as a Local Colorist50%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 Howells, Mark Twain wrote about the lower-class people, because they were the people he knew so well and their life was the one he himself had lived. Moreover he successfully used local color and historical settings to illustrate and shed light on the contemporary society. Twain s Use of Vernacular76%Another fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language, his 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. 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 local 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 literary 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. His Humor99%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 tales(荒 誕不 經(jīng) 的 故 事 ). By considering his experience as a newspaperman, Mark Twain shared the popular image of the American funny man whose punning, facetious, irreverent 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. Mark Twains Masterpieces PART FOURFourth part.(Others)1.His Famous Words2.A Mirror of America His Famous Words “Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early, and that not even birds should do it unless they are out of worms.”70%55%“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.” 40%His Famous WordsThe Project “The holy passion of Friendship is so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. Product OneVIEW MORE “Of all Gods creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.” Product TwoVIEW MORE “Nothing is made in vain, but the fly came near it.” “Id rather have ten snakes in the house than one fly.” Product ThreeVIEW MORE 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 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. THANK YOUMark Twain