馬克吐溫Mark Twain課件

1、Local Colorism Mark TwainBackground for its appearanceSocially: westward movementIntellectually: The frontier humorists (tall tale) prepared the literary ground. A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some such stories are exaggerations of actual e

2、vents.Local ColorismTime: from the late 1860s and early 1870s to the turn of the 20th century. DefinitionHamlin Garland （加蘭） defined local colorism as having “such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native.”the elements w

3、hich characterize a local culture, such as speech, customs, and something peculiar to one particular placetextureDefinitioncovers physical setting and distinctive qualities of landscape which condition human thought and behaviorbackgroundUltimate aimto create the illusion of an indigenous little wor

4、ld with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside.General Features of Local Colorism A tendency to glorify and idealize and have a nostalgic feeling to the pastMinutely accurate descriptions of the life of the regions and truthful depiction of the common people.Life Samuel Langhorne Clemen

5、sBrought up on the Mississippi RiverPrinter, Pilot and JournalistAmericas foremost celebrityTragic events of his later lifeThoughts and his Writingsdrew from his own rich fund of knowledge of people and places .local colorrepresented social life through portraits of local places which he knew best T

6、houghts and his Writings. Satire:Mark Twain loved life and people, and freedom and justice, felt a pride in human dignity and advocated brotherhood of man.He hated tyranny and iniquity, despised meanness and cruelty, and took his role as a social critic in a responsible manner. Thoughts and his Writ

7、ings. Satire: His writings touch upon almost every issue of his time such as politics, religion, capital and labor, slavery, U.S. imperialism abroad, persecutions against minor nationalities, etc. It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal cl

8、ass except Congress.Picture from “Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.”“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” Picture from Dave Thomson collection: Thoughts and his WritingsSatirical works include:The Innocents Abroad(1869) Roughing it(1872)

9、 The Gilded Age(1873) The Prince and the Pauper(1882)A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court (1889)Thoughts and his WritingsAnti-persecution essays: “Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy” “Goldsmiths Friend Abroad Again”Anti-imperialism essays: “The Treaty with China” “To the Person Sitting in Darkne

10、ss”Anti-imperialismOn August 12, 1900, a day before the international troops entered Peking, Mark Twain wrote: “It is all China now, and my sympathies are with the Chinese. They have been villainously dealt with by the sceptered thieves of Europe, and I hope they will drive all foreigners out and ke

11、ep them out for good.”From optimism to determinismMark Twain was essentially an affirmative writer, but toward the latter part of his life, he became increasingly violent in his censure of man and his society.Language of his Writings. Vernacular: use of dialects to reproduce actual daily speech with

12、 a degree of accuracy It is not grand, pompous, but simple, direct, lucid. This unpretentious style is best described as vernacular. “In this book, a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest forms of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary Pike County d

13、ialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. ”Language of his Writings. Colloquial: 1. His language

14、 is mostly Anglo-Saxon in origin, even in the general standard speech of uneducated Americans. 2. The words are short, concrete and direct in effect. 3. Sentence structures are simple or compound and includes even ungrammatical elements. Language and Writings. Colloquial: one of his chief contributi

15、ons: He made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country. His influence reached Hemingway, Eliot, Faulkner, Salinger, and the list goes on. Review of RealismLocal Colorism 鄉(xiāng)土文學: Bret Harte 布列特哈特Hamlin Garland 哈姆林加蘭Mark Twain Differences between Howells, James and TwainHowellsJamesTwainThemeMiddle class lifeUpper reaches of A