Mark Twain——马克吐温个人介绍及作品背景分析

Mark Twain is a part of America. His personal success and failure were those of America. He moved, along with America, from innocence to experience. He was famous for his description of common people and the way they talked, but especially for his humor. Yale and Oxford honored him for his writing.
author
Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but evolved into a chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies and murderous acts of mankind. masterpieces： The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Prince and the Pauper Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
pen name
Twain is anarchaic term for "two", as in "The veil of the temple was rent in twain." The river-boatman'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 is 12 feet (3.7 m) deep and it is safe to pass."
Works
humorist
It is fun to read Twain to begin with, for most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks, etc., and some of them are actually tall tales.
Mark Twain
——Mirror of America
Introduction Mark of Twain
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Why is he considered Mirror of America
Samuel Longhorn Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name MarkTwain, was an American author and humorist. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
humorist
However, his humor is not only of witty remarks mocking at small things or of farcical elements making people laugh, but a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism.
1. “Mirror” here means a person who gives a true representation or description of the country.
2. Generally speaking, all literary giants in human history are also great historians, thinkers and philosophers. Their works often reveal more truth than many political essays.
3. Mark Twain was one of these giants, and his life and works are a mirror of America of his time.
赵奇盼 王炜 何春花