美国文学史及选读
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF LITERATURE
American Literature
美国文学史及选读
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens
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Life experience
Major works
Style of local color
Appreciation
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
1870 married Olivia langdon
Love story of Mark Twain: “Fall in
love at first sight”—Mark fell in
love with his future wife—Olivia
Landdon when he happened to
see her picture in her brother’s
necklace picture box. Then he
obtained a recommendation
letter from an old friend of
Olivia’s father. Then the two got
married and lived a happy life
ever since.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
“The dog is a gentleman;
I hope to go to his heaven,
not man's.”
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
his masterpieces
The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
<<哈克贝里费恩历险记>>
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
Lecture Nine: Mark Twain (1935-1910)
 I. Introduction
 “All modern American literature comes from
one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry
Finn.”

--------Ernest Hemingway
 Samuel Langhorne Clemens is better known
by the pen name(pseudonym) Mark Twain,the
cay of the boatman taking soundings and
meaning two fathoms,I.e. twelve feet.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
 Now on a hill above Hannibal,stands a bronze
figure of Mark Twain with the inscription: His
religion was humanity.
 The humorist: Mark Twain did not write a
story ;he told it. His mastery of American
speech was unrivaled.His greatest works was
set on the long river---Mississippi.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
Major Works
 1865 The Celebrated Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County
 1869 The Innocents Abroad
 1873 The Gilded Age
 1876 The Adventure of Tom Sawyer
 1883 Life on the Mississippi
 1884 The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn(his
masterpiece)
 1882 The Prince and the Pauper
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
 1894 Pudd’nhead Wilson
 1900 The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
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(the best of his powerful pessimistic tales)
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
Tom Sawyer
About the Book
Tom Sawyer, a mischievous
redheaded orphan taken in by
his Aunt Polly, goes through a
series of adventures involving
his friends, Joe Harper and
Huckleberry Finn.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
 A) Tom Sawyer: a plain American boy
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Sid: Tom’s younger brother
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Aunt Polly: lives in St.Petrsbury, a remote
town on the banks of the Mississippi.
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Huck Finn: Tom’s bosom friend
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Becky Thatcher: a daughter of the Judge
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girl-friend

Indian Joe: a real criminal
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
Tom Sawyer
 The hero of the novel,he is a young boy of
indeterminate age who is neither good nor
bad. He delights in getting into trouble
sometimes, especially when he can fool his
aunt or his school teacher .
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Tom is a clever, imaginative boy who
reads a lot and then somewhat bookish in his
approach to games in adventures that of an 8;
sometimes those of a 13; this is why Twain
does not tell us exactly how old Tom is. He is
apparently an orphan,for he lives with his
aunt.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
The Language Style of Mark Twain
 Colloquial language: is the everyday language
we use in our conversation.It is sometimes
ungrammatical, and it may contain slang
words or phrases .It varies from place to
place and among ethnic groups.Mark Twain
was the master of colloquial speech
art,including dialect.
 Vivid depiction of the country life along the
Mississippi River.Mark Twain is the first
American writer to introduce colloquialism
into American literature.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
2.What is the style of this excerpt?
 Use big words, e.g. glorious, issue,
melancholy, expedition, etc.
 Comparison and contrast. (e.g.worldly
wealth—marbles, bits of toys and trash)
 Figures of speech/rhetoric language:
hyperbole (the far-reaching continent of
unwhitewashed fence; make a world of fun of
him, etc.); metaphor, metonymy (Big
Missouri—Ben Rogers) and etc.
 Irony. (e.g. But of course you’d druther
work—wouldn’t you? Of course you would!)
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
Style
 a. The use of allegory and symbolism
Allegory: a literary device in which fictional characters
symbolically represent a moral or universal principle.
 b. The production of the first
American prose epic.
 c. Language
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
Question and Discussion
 Discipline and punishment in The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer
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HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
More Questions?
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU