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  3. Mark Twain’s instructions were quite clear: his autobiography was to remain

Mark Twain’s instructions were quite clear: his autobiography was to remain

游客2023-12-07  32
问题     Mark Twain’s instructions were quite clear: his autobiography was to remain unpublished until 100 years after his death. You couldn’t imagine a writer doing something like that these days. Who could resist a pay cheque in the here and now for deferred immortality in the hereafter? More to the point, could any modern writer be certain their lives would still be interesting to anyone so long after their death?
    Hubris never came into Twain’s calculations. He was the American writer, the rags-to-riches embodiment of the American dream, and it never seems to have occurred to him that his popularity would fade. Nor has it. He is still the writer before whom everyone from Faulkner to Mailer has knelt. And even though his literary executors might not have followed his instructions to the letter — various chunks of his autobiography have been published over the years— this year’s publication of the first of three planned collections of Twain’s full autobiographical writings to coincide with the centenary of his death has still been one of the literary events of the year.
    They are about the abstract. Such as religion.
    "There are some extracts, including one in which he confuses the Virgin birth and the Immaculate Conception, in which he declares his religious scepticism robustly, about which Twain was extremely nervous," says Smith. "He was so worried he would be ostracised and shunned for this by God-fearing Americans that he actually set a publication date of 2406 for those sections."
    Imagine. A man so protective and nervous of his own reputation that he sought to keep some of the ideas he thought might alienate his public silent for 500 years. Yet equally a man so sure of his reputation that he had no doubts people would still want to read him 500 years after his death. There, in essence, is Twain’s ambivalence between the public and the private, between truth and spin. Needless to say, his executors didn’t adhere to the 500-year diktat and the American public continue to adore him regardless. Then Twain being Twain, he’d have hardly expected anything less. [br] Dickens is mentioned in the third paragraph to
选项 A、illustrate Mark Twain’s equivalent status in American literature.
B、compare the differences between English and American literature.
C、assess the influence of Dickens’ works on modern literature.
D、show Mark Twain’s comparable productivity.
答案 A
解析 根据题干关键词Dickens将问题定位于第三段倒数三句话。这三句的大意是：“狄更斯发表过十二部小说，每一部小说都可以奠定他成为英国伟人的地位，吐温的那十二部小说呢?是什么造就他成为‘美国小说之父’?”由此推断这里提到狄更斯的作用就是说明和狄更斯在英国文学史的地位相当，马克·吐温是“美国的小说之父”，即[A]是答案。文章第三段提到其实吐温的作品很少，所以提到狄更斯并不是要说明吐温的多产，排除[D]。其他两项没有提到。
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