第8单元　马克•吐温

8.1　复习笔记

Mark Twain (1835-1910) （马克·吐温）

1Life（生平）

Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He was an American novelist and humorist.

Twain grew up in Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion’s newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” which became very popular and brought nationwide attention. His travelogues were also well received.

He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.

马克·吐温是萨缪尔·朗赫恩·克莱门斯的笔名。他是美国小说家和幽默作家。

马克·吐温在密苏里州长大，这里成为《费恩历险记》和《汤姆·索耶历险记》的故事背景。他曾从师于一位印刷工，当过排字工，向他哥哥的报纸投过稿。在几个城市当过印刷工后，他成为密西西比河上的领航员，随后向西投奔他哥哥。他淘金失败，又转向新闻业。当记者时，他写了一则幽默小故事《加拉维拉县驰名的跳蛙》，大受欢迎，引起全国关注。他的游记也广受欢迎。

作为一名作家和演讲家，他获得了巨大成功。他的才智和讽刺技巧得到批评家和同时代人的广泛赞誉。他与总统、艺术家、工业家和欧洲皇室结交为友。

2Contributions to Literature（文学成就）

Mark Twain made great contribution to American literature. Before him, the writers in America has been greatly influenced by European literature, but his way of thinking, values, language, even his humor are rooted in America. Local color is the most outstanding feature of the novel, showing a regional language feature, custom and lifestyle. At the same time, his colloquial style of prose has become the origin of American literary tradition of colloquialism, and Sherwood Anderson, Hemingway, Eliot, Faulkner, and Salinger were influenced by him to varying degrees. William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature.”

马克·吐温为美国文学做出了巨大贡献。他以前的主要美国作家受欧洲文学影响较大，而他的思维方式、价值观、创作语言、甚至他的幽默都是地道美国土产。“乡土特色”是他的小说的突出特点，表现了一个地区的语言特点、习俗和生活方式。同时，他的口语体散文形式成为美国口语体文学传统的发端，安德森，海明威，艾略特，福克纳，塞林格等都在不同程度上受到他的影响。福克纳将他称为“美国文学之父”。

3Major Works（主要作品）

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County  (1865) 《加拉维拉县驰名的跳蛙》

The Innocents Abroad (1869) 《傻瓜出国记》

The Gilded Age (1873) 《镀金时代》

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) 《汤姆·索耶历险记》

Life on the Mississippi (1883) 《密西西比河上》

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) 《哈克贝里·费恩历险记》

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) 《亚瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美国佬》

The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) 《傻瓜威尔逊》

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900) 《败坏哈德莱堡的人》

4Selected works（选读作品）

◆ The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County《加拉维拉县驰名的跳蛙》

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is based on the fish story among gold diggers. The first-person narrator “I” is a gentleman of intellectual class, and we can know it from his language. The story teller of the jumping frog is a rough fellow in a mine lot. “I” was trusted by a friend to find a Smiley by inquiring of Wheeler. But the man named Wheeler talked about another man named Smiley, and told many stories of him to the narrator. “I” could not understand why he told such a man and his stories to me, which had nothing to do with “me” and were very boring. Finally, “I” made a clear escape from him.

《跳蛙》取材于淘金者中流传的夸张故事。故事的第一人称叙事者“我”显然是个知识阶层的绅士，这一点不难从他遣词造句中看出。而讲故事的人却是一个矿区粗人维勒。“我”受朋友之托去找维勒，向他打听一个姓斯迈里的人。而维勒却给他讲起另一个姓斯迈里的人和他的许多故事，“我”完全搞不懂维勒为什么要讲这些与他毫不相关而又无聊之至的故事，最后一逃了之。