首页
登录
职称英语
A Brief Introduction of Mark Twain Twain, Mark
A Brief Introduction of Mark Twain Twain, Mark
游客
2024-06-12
13
管理
问题
A Brief Introduction of Mark Twain
Twain, Mark, pseudonym(笔名) of Samuel Langhome Clemens ( 1835 - 1910 ), American writer and humorist, whose best work is characterized by broad, often irreverent(不敬的) humor or biting social satire. Twain’s writing is also known for realism of place and language, memorable characters, and hatred of hypocrisy and oppression.
Early Years
Born in Florida, Missouri, Clemens moved with his family to Hannibal, Missouri, a port on the Mississippi River, when he was four years old. There he received a public school education. After the death of his father in 1847, Clemens was apprenticed to two Hannibal printers, and in 1851 he began setting type for and contributing sketches to his brother Orion’s Hannibal Journal. Subsequently he worked as a printer in Keokuk, Iowa; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; other cities. Later Clemens was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River until the American Civil War (1861 - 1865) brought an end to travel on the river. In 1861 Clemens served briefly as a volunteer soldier in the Confederate cavalry. Later that year he accompanied his brother to the newly created Nevada Territory, where he tried his hand at silver mining. In 1862 he became a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada, and in 1863 he began signing his articles with the pseudonym Mark Twain, a Mississippi River phrase meaning "two fathoms deep." After moving to San Francisco, California, in 1864, Twain met American writers Artemus Ward and Bret Harte, who encouraged him in his work. In 1865 Twain reworked a tale he had heard in the California gold fields, and within months the author and the story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," had become national sensations.
Years of Maturity
In 1867 Twain lectured in New York City, and in the same year he visited Europe and Palestine. He wrote of these travels in The Innocents Abroad (1869), a book exaggerating those aspects of European culture that impress American tourists. In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon. After living briefly in Buffalo, New York, the couple moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Much of Twain’s best work was written in the 1870s and 1880s in Hartford or during the summers at Quarry Farm, near Elmira, New York. Roughing It (1872) recounts his early adventures as a miner and journalist; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) celebrates boyhood in a town on the Mississippi River; A Tramp Abroad (1880) describes a walking trip through the Black Forest of Germany and the Swiss Alps; The Prince and the Pauper (1882), a children’s book, focuses on switched identities in Tudor England; Life on the Mississippi (1883) combines an autobiographical account of his experiences as a river pilot with a visit to the Mississippi nearly two decades after he left it; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) satirizes oppression in feudal England.
About His Masterpiece
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the sequel to Tom Sawyer, is considered Twain’s masterpiece. The book is the story of the title character, known as Huck, a boy who flees his father by rafting down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave, Jim. The pair’s adventures show Huck (and the reader) the cruelty of which men and women are capable. Another theme of the novel is the conflict between Huck’s feelings of friendship with Jim, who is one of the few people he can trust, and his knowledge that he is breaking the laws of the time by he]ping Jim escape. Huckleberry Finn, which is almost entirely narrated from Huck’s point of view, is noted for its authentic language and for its deep commitment to freedom. Huck’s adventures also provide the reader with a panorama of American life along the Mississippi before the civil War. Twain’s skill in capturing the rhythms of that life help make the book one of the masterpieces of American literature.
Turning Point
In 1884 Twain formed the firm Charles L. Webster and Company to publish his and other writers’ works, notably Personal Memoirs (two volumes, 1885 -1886) by American general and president Ulysses S. Grant. A disastrous investment in an automatic typesetting machine led to the firm’s bankruptcy in 1894. A successful worldwide lecture tour and the book based on those travels, Following the Equator (1897), paid off Twain’s debts.
Twain’s work during the 1890s and the 1900s is marked by growing pessimism and bitterness -the result of his business reverses and, later, the deaths of his wife and two daughters. Significant works of this period are Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894), a novel set in the South before the Civil War that criticizes racism by focusing on mistaken racial identities, and Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1896), a sentimental biography. Twain’s other later writings include short stories, the best known of which are "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" (1899) and "The War Prayer" (1905); philosophical, social, and political essays; the manuscript of "The Mysterious Stranger," an uncompleted piece that was published posthumously in 1916; and autobiographical dictations.
His Influence
Twain’s work was inspired by the unconventional West, and the popularity of his work marked the end of the domination of American Literature by New England writers. He is justly renowned as a humorist but was not always appreciated by the writers of his time as anything more than that. Successive generations of writers, however, recognized the role that Twain played in creating a truly American literature. He portrayed uniquely American subjects in a humorous and colloquial, yet poetic, language. His success in creating this plain but evocative language precipitated the end of American reverence for British and European culture and for the more formal language associated with those traditions. His adherence to American themes, settings, and language set him apart from many other novelists of the day and had a powerful effect on such later American writers as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, both of whom pointed to Twain as an inspiration for their own writing.
Later Years
In Twain’s later years he wrote less, but he became a celebrity, frequently speaking out on public issues. He also came to be known for the white linen suit he always wore when making public appearances. Twain received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1907. When he died he left an uncompleted autobiography, which was eventually edited by his secretary, Albert Bigelow Paine, and published in 1924. In 1990 the first half of a handwritten manuscript of Huckleberry Finn was discovered in Hollywood, California. After a series of legal battles over ownership, the portion, which included previously unpublished material, was reunited with its second half, which had been housed at the Buffalo and Erie County (New York) Public Library, in 1992. A revised edition of Huckleberry Finn including the unpublished material was released in 1996. [br] We don’t know the exact number of Mark Twain’s works.
选项
A、Y
B、N
C、NG
答案
C
解析
文章虽然提及一些作品,但对总数没有提及,所以此题为NG。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3630270.html
相关试题推荐
HarlemRenaissance(文艺复兴)—ABriefIntroductionImport
HarlemRenaissance(文艺复兴)—ABriefIntroductionImport
HarlemRenaissance(文艺复兴)—ABriefIntroductionImport
HarlemRenaissance(文艺复兴)—ABriefIntroductionImport
HarlemRenaissance(文艺复兴)—ABriefIntroductionImport
ABriefIntroductionofMarkTwainTwain,Mark
ABriefIntroductionofMarkTwainTwain,Mark
ABriefIntroductionofMarkTwainTwain,Mark
ABriefIntroductionofMarkTwainTwain,Mark
ABriefIntroductionofMarkTwainTwain,Mark
随机试题
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteashortessayentitledOnBan
(1)NearusonourstreettherewasafamilywithagirlmyagecalledSafin
表音文字以()为记录单位A.音节或词 B.语素或音位 C.语素或词 D.音
治风湿痹痛、腰膝酸软者宜用()。A.防己配独活B.桑寄生配羌活C.羌活配独活D
药品所含成分与国家药品标准规定成分不符的是A:假药B:劣药C:次品药D:处
T淋巴细胞发育的场所是( )。A.骨髓 B.胸腺 C.脾 D.淋巴结
患者咨询护士怎样判断外科急腹症,正确回答是A、先腹痛后发热 B、以腹泻、心悸为
下列是地藏菩萨道场的名山是()。A.湖北十堰的武当山 B.江西鹰潭的龙虎山
下列有关上市公司公开发行证券的条件的表述中,正确的有()A:上市公司的盈利能力应
投资项目决策分析与评价的基本要求包括贯彻落实科学发展观、资料数据准确可靠和()
最新回复
(
0
)