Transcript 馬克吐溫

馬克吐溫
姓名：Gloria
班級：一義
座號：16
指導老師：李秀敏
Mark Twain Forum photo gallery
Introduce His Life
Twain, Mark, pseudonym of Samuel
Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910),
American writer and humorist, whose
best work is characterized by broad,
often irreverent 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.
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;
and 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.
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 (see Feudalism).
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.
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.
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 Oxford University 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.
馬克吐溫格言妙語精選
◎【好書】 一位不閱讀好書的人，他比那
些不能讀書的人並沒有佔優勢。
◎【價值】 當一個人的智力和內心是空虛
的，肚子吃得飽只有很小的價值。
◎【社會】 一個人的知識愈少，他所發出
的噪音愈大，而他所得到的薪資愈高。
◎【人生】 擁有好朋友、好書、以及一個
迷糊的良知，這就是理想的人生。
【人窮志短】(Money)
『缺乏錢財是所有罪惡的根源。』
"The lack of money is the root of all evil."
【大不敬】(True irreverence)
『真正的大不敬是不尊重別人的神。』
"True irreverence is disrespect for another
man's god."
【宗教神學】(Theology)
『人類是唯一的動物，他愛護他的鄰居就如同愛護他
自己一樣，但是如果對方的宗教神學有問題，他會
割斷對方的喉嚨。』
"He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as
himself, and cut his throat if his theology isn't
straight."
【珍貴的資產】(Valuable Possession)
『每一個人生下來都擁有一項資產，它比其他所有的
資產價值都高，就是他最後的一口氣。』
"Each person is born to one possession which
outvalues all his others --- his last breath."
【良好的教養】(Good Breeding)
『良好的教養在於隱藏我們對自己較佳的評價，以及
隱藏我們對他人較差的評價。』
"Good breeding consists in concealing how much
we think of ourselves and how little we think of the
other person."
【名聲】(Fame)
『「名聲」如同是蒸氣，「聲望」如同是意外，在
地球上唯一可以確定的事情是被遺忘掉。』
"Fame is vapor; popularity an accident; the only
earthly certainty is oblivion."
【原則與偏見】(Principles)
『「原則」是「偏見」的另一個名稱。』
"Principles is another name for prejudice."
【迷信】(Superstition)
『被大膽說出的預言，從來不會被迷信的人認為是愚笨無趣
的。』
"Prophecies boldly uttered never fall barren on superstitious
ears."
【需要】(Necessity)
『「需要」不認識任何的「法律」。』
"Necessity knows no law."