专八人文知识需知的美国名人--马克·吐温

专八人文知识需知的美国名人--马克·吐温

　　英语专八人文知识涵盖的知识面较广，考生们需要平时多积累小常识，这样在专八考试中才能游刃有余，新东方在线整理了专八人文知识需知的美国名人系列知识点供考生们参考。

　　马克·吐温的第一部巨著《卡城名蛙》，在1865年11月18日于《纽约周六报刊》首次出版。这作品在那里出版的唯一原因是因为它完成得太迟，赶不及纳入阿特姆斯·沃德收集美国西部特色著作的书中。

　　这以后，《沙里缅度联邦报》派马克吐温去当时被称为三明治群岛的夏威夷作通讯记者，给联邦报寄来关于那里的事情的信。后来他在旧金山《加利福尼亚大地报》工作时也是根据这些幽默的信件写出的，因为《加利福尼亚大地报》派了他取道巴拿马运河从旧金山到纽约市，作巡回记者。当时他就不断寄出信件给报纸出版，讽刺而幽默地记录他的所见所闻。1867年6月8日，吐温乘游艇前往费城，要住5个月。这一游导致了《傻子旅行》的诞生。

　　1872年，吐温出版了第二部旅行文学著作《艰苦岁月》作为《傻子旅行》的续集。《艰苦岁月》的内容是吐温到内华达的旅程及在美国西部的后期生马克·吐温活的半自传式描述。这书以“傻子”对欧洲和中东的很多国家的批评来讽刺美国及西方的社会。吐温的下一作品《艰苦岁月》把焦点放在美国社会上。之后的《镀金时代》并不是旅行文学作品，因为这以前的两本书都是旅行文学作品，而这是他第一次写小说。这本书亦很著名，因为这是吐温唯一一本与人合作写成的书;这本书是由吐温和邻居查尔斯·达德利·沃纳写成的。

　　吐温之后的两本著作均是关于他在密西西比河上的经历。《密西西比河的旧日时光》一系列的小品在1875年出版于《大西洋月刊》，最具特色的是吐温对浪漫主义的醒悟。吐温在《旧日时光》之后更著了《密西西比河上的生活》。之后吐温写了《汤姆·索亚历险记》，这本书描写了他在汉尼拔的童年。吐温模仿自己小时候的性格，塑造出汤姆·索亚的性格来。这书亦引入一角色哈克贝利·费恩为配角。 　　《王子与乞丐》的故事情节虽然今天常出现于很多电影和文学作品中马克·吐温，但其实并不普遍被接纳。这是吐温首次尝试写“乞丐”，其缺点是吐温在英国社会并没有太足够的经历。《王子与乞丐》写作期间，吐温亦开始了《顽童流浪记》的写作，并也把另一部游记《浪迹海外》完成.《浪迹海外》是马克·吐温往中欧及南欧旅行的游记。

　　吐温之后的出版著作为《哈克贝利费恩历险记》，这本书出版以后，令他成为更著名的伟大美国作家。《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》是《汤姆·索亚历险记》的续集，严肃的气氛比后者更为浓厚。这书成为了美国大部分学校的必修书，因为哈克放弃服从规矩，而很多这样年龄的人马克·吐温正是这样想(哈克的故事背景为还有奴隶制的1850年代)。吐温于1876年夏，《汤姆·索亚历险记》发行后手写了约400页的《顽童流浪记》故事内容。吐温的妻子死于1904年，这以后他才得以把他的著作审查员及编辑者--他的妻子不喜欢的书籍出版。这些书中有一本是《神秘陌生人》，这本书并未在吐温有生之年出版，所以人们找到1897至1905年之间的三种版本的手稿。这三种版本令这部著作的出版情况很混乱，而现在才可得到吐温最先写的版本.吐温最后一部作品是他口述的自传。一些案卷保管人和编辑者把这自传重新整理一遍，要令它的格式更符合一般格式，因而一些吐温的幽默字句被删掉了。

　　Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910),well known by his pen nameMark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is noted for his novels Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn (1884), which has been called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventuresof Tom Sawyer (1876). He is extensively quoted. Twain was a friend to presidents, artists,industrialists, and European royalty.

　　Twain was very popular, and his keen wit and incisive satire earned praise from critics and peers.Upon his death he was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulknercalled Twain "the father of American literature".

　　Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but evolved into a chronicler of the vanities,hypocrisies and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, with Huckleberry Finn, he combinedrich humor, sturdy narrative and social criticism. Twain was a master at rendering colloquial speechand helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes andlanguage. Many of Twain's works have been suppressed at times for various reasons. Adventuresof Huckleberry Finn has been repeatedly restricted in American high schools, not least for itsfrequent use of the word "nigger", which was in common usage in the pre-Civil War period inwhich the novel was set.

　　A complete bibliography of his works is nearly impossible to compile because of the vast number ofpieces written by Twain (often in obscure newspapers) and his use of several different pen names.Additionally, a large portion of his speeches and lectures have been lost or were not written down;thus, the collection of Twain's works is an ongoing process. Researchers rediscovered publishedmaterial by Twain as recently as 1995.

　　Early journalism and travelogues

　　Cabin in which Twain wrote Jumping Frog of Calaveras, located on Jackass Hill in TuolumneCounty. Historical marker and interior view available.Twain's first important work, "The CelebratedJumping Frog of Calaveras County", was first published in the New York Saturday Press onNovember 18, 1865. The only reason it was published there was that his story arrived too late tobe included in a book Artemus Ward was compiling featuring sketches of the wild American West.

　　After this burst of popularity, Twain was commissioned by the Sacramento Union to write lettersabout his travel experiences for publication in the newspaper, his first of which was to ride thesteamer Ajax in its maiden voyage to Hawaii, referred to at the time as the Sandwich Islands. Thesehumorous letters proved the genesis to his work with the San Francisco Alta California newspaper,which designated him a traveling correspondent for a trip from San Francisco to New York Cityvia the Panama isthmus. All the while, Twain was writing letters meant for publishing back and forth,chronicling his experiences with his burlesque humor. On June 8, 1867, Twain set sail on thepleasure cruiser Quaker City for five months. This trip resulted in The Innocents Abroad or The NewPilgrims' Progress.

　　This book is a record of a pleasure trip. If it were a record of a solemn scientific expedition it wouldhave about it the gravity, that profundity, and that impressive incomprehensibility which are soproper to works of that kind, and withal so attractive. Yet not withstanding it is only a record of apicnic, it has a purpose, which is, to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europeand the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead of the eyes of those who traveled inthose countries before him. I make small pretense of showing anyone how he ought to look atobjects of interest beyond the sea – other books do that, and therefore, even if I were competentto do it, there is no need.

　　In 1872, Twain published a second piece of travel literature, Roughing It, as a semi-sequel toInnocents. Roughing It is a semi-autobiographical account of Twain's journey to Nevada and hissubsequent life in the American West. The book lampoons American and Western society in thesame way that Innocents critiqued the various countries of Europe and the Middle East. Twain'snext work kept Roughing It's focus on American society but focused more on the events of theday. Entitled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, it was not a travel piece, as his previous two bookshad been, and it was his first attempt at writing a novel. The book is also notable because it isTwain's only collaboration; it was written with his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner.

　　Twain's next two works drew on his experiences on the Mississippi River. Old Times on theMississippi, a series of sketches published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1875, featured Twain’sdisillusionment with Romanticism. Old Times eventually became the starting point for Life on theMississippi.

　　Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn

　　Twain's next major publication was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which drew on his youth inHannibal. Tom Sawyer was modeled on Twain as a child, with traces of two schoolmates, JohnBriggs and Will Bowen. The book also introduced in a supporting role Huckleberry Finn, based onTwain's boyhood friend Tom Blankenship.

　　The Prince and the Pauper, despite a storyline that is omnipresent in film and literature today, wasnot as well received. Telling the story of two boys born on the same day who are physicallyidentical, the book acts as a social commentary as the prince and pauper switch places. Pauperwas Twain's first attempt at fiction, and blame for its shortcomings is usually put on Twain forhaving not been experienced enough in English society, and also on the fact that it was producedafter a massive hit. In between the writing of Pauper, Twain had started Adventures of HuckleberryFinn (which he consistently had problems completing[48]) and started and completed anothertravel book, A Tramp Abroad, which follows Twain as he traveled through central and southernEurope.

　　Pen names

　　Twain used different pen names before deciding on Mark Twain. He signed humorous andimaginative sketches Josh until 1863. Additionally, he used the pen name Thomas JeffersonSnodgrass for a series of humorous letters.

　　He maintained that his primary pen name came from his years working on Mississippi riverboats,where two fathoms, a depth indicating safe water for passage of boat, was measured on thesounding line. A fathom is a maritime unit of depth, equivalent to two yards (1.8 m); twain is anarchaic term for "two". The riverboatman's cry was mark twain or, more fully, by the mark twain,meaning "according to the mark [on the line], [the depth is] two [fathoms]", that is, "The water is12 feet (3.7 m) deep and it is safe to pass".

　　Twain claimed that his famous pen name was not entirely his invention. In Life on the Mississippi, hewrote:

　　Captain Isaiah Sellers was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to jot down brief paragraphsof plain practical information about the river, and sign them "MARK TWAIN", and give them to theNew Orleans Picayune. They related to the stage and condition of the river, and were accurate andvaluable; ... At the time that the telegraph brought the news of his death, I was on the Pacificcoast. I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancientmariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands – asign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as beingthe petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.

　　Twain's version of the story about his nom de plume has been questioned by biographer GeorgeWilliams III,the Territorial Enterprise newspaper, and Purdue University's Paul Fatout. which claimthat mark twain refers to a running bar tab that Twain would regularly incur while drinking at JohnPiper's saloon in Virginia City, Nevada.

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