Hi my dear friends. Today we are going to know a bit more about Mark Twain, considered "The father of American literature". It is for sure you have read some of his books such as "The adventures of Huckleberry Finn", or "The adventures of Tom Sawyer" among many others. I hope you'll enjoy this post!
Hola mis queridos amigos. Hoy vamos a saber un poquito más sobre Mark Twain considerado "El padre de la literatura americana". Seguramente que habéis leído alguno de su libros tales como "Las aventuras de Huckelberry Finn" o "Las aventuras de Tom Sawyer" entre otros muchos. ¡Espero que disfrutéis esta publicación!
Info: from Speak Up magazine.
Photos: Wikipedia / Simon&Schuster.UK. / Vermont.Public / Penguin.Libros / Librería.Berlín / Facebook (2) / The.waterways.Journal
MARK TWAIN - THE FATHER OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
"A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt."
"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest."
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhome Clemens on 30 November 1835. Considered the father of American literature, his masterful use of vernacular speech, biting wit, ferocious social satire, and deep understanding of human nature revolutionised the world of fiction in the US. His was the critical voice of a rapidly-changing nation in a period he himself called "The Gilded Age".
MISSISSIPPI AS A SYMBOL
Born in Mississippi in the village of Florida, Twain grew up in the bustling town of Hannibal on the Mississippi River. Steamboats, a slave-owning society and the adventures of childhood along the riverbanks would colour his imagination indelibly.
Twain hated school and dreamt about of becoming a riverboat pilot. His first job, however, was as a printer's apprentice and typesetter, which "helped him figure out how words go together." Finally, after a two-year training period, he became a Mississippi River pilot. The Mississippi was the central symbol of his literary work. The main artery of the slavery business: one million men, women and children were transported down the river for sale on steamboats from 1820 to 1860.
ACCLAIM AS A WRITER
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Twain served briefly as a Confederate soldier. He then headed west in the 1861 Gold Rush, before working as a miner and finally a journalist. With writing, he found his calling. He adopted the pen name "Mark Twain", riverboat slang meaning "two fathoms of safe water".
His career breakthrough came in 1865 with a short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", about a man who loved to bet on animals. It established his reputation as a master storyteller with a gift for regional accents. More fame came with two travel books, "The Innocents Abroad" (1869) and "Roughing It" (1872). Twain used funny, irreverent observation to mock the stuffiness of old European culture and the ignorance of American tourists.
THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL
Twain then published the two novels which would make him famous. In "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876), a coming-of-age tale, he captured the nostalgic, romantic, light-hearted spirit, and imagination of his boyhood. Tom is a mischievous but good-hearted orphan who shares adventures with his best friend Huckelberry Finn. Its sequel, "Adventures of Huckelberry Finn" (1884) cemented Twain's place in literary history. A runaway boy and an escaped slave travel down the Mississippi, looking for freedom, in a novel tackling the harsh reality of America's original sin, SLAVERY.
TRAGEDIES
Twain regularly invested in new technology. Disaster struck in 1894, when a failed investment in the Paige Compositor, a complex typesetting machine, left him bankrupt. Suffering from depression and anxiety, he decided to pay off his debts with a worldwide lecture tour in 1895-1896. Delighting audiences with his quick wit and eloquence, he became an international celebrity. He returned to the US with his wealth and public reputation restored.
In his private life, however, Twain suffered a series of family tragedies. He and his wife Livy lost their son, Langdon, at just nineteen months, in 1872. Susy, his favourite daughter, died aged twenty-four in 1896 from spinal meningitis. His wife died in 1904, followed by their youngest daughter Jean, an epileptic, in 1909. Only Clara, his middle daughter, outlived him.
AN IMMEASURABLE IMPACT
These terrible events, together with disillusionment regarding human nature, imperialism, religion, and institutional greed, filled the writer with bitter anger. His final works were dark and cynical. He died just four months after Jean.
Twain's impact on American literature and culture is immeasurable. Ernest Hemingway famously said that "all modern American literature comes from Huckelberry Finn". Twain was the first major American author to successfully use vernacular language. He democratised American literature by demonstrating that regional voices could describe and confront the country's most serious moral issues. He also entertained millions, using his wonderful sense of humour as a weapon against injustice.
A FIGHTER AGAINST INJUSTICE
Mark Twain fought against slavery all his life. He was shocked when his own parents ordered the whipping of Jennie, the black slave who had nursed him and his siblings, for insubordination. The "woman was almost like one of the family," Twain wrote. Jennie then demanded to be sold.
Twain's attitude towards American Indians changed from racist prejudice during his time in the West to later empathy and anti-imperialist anger as he recognised the terrible impact of European and American colonisation. Twain's friend William Dean Howells described the writer as having "an indignant sense of right and wrong, a scorn of all affectation and pretence, an ardent of meanness and injustice".
The writer loved modern technology and inventions. He was one of the first Americans to have a telephone at home. The inventor Thomas Edison visited Twain at his Connecticut home in 1909 and made the only known film of the writer, dressed in his iconic white suite, with his daughters Clara and Jean. He adored his family, and the deaths of his wife and three of his children almost destroyed him. His wife Livy (Olivia), the daughter of a New York coal baron, was fundamental to his success, brilliantly editing his work.
The author's outsized personality helped to make him famous. He made his unruly hair an important part of his public persona, laughing at it at times. He delighted in publicity and was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists and European royalty. But he was also a friend to his neighbours, especially the local farmers.
Twain was born just after the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1835. He died one day after the comet was at its closest to the sun in 1910. Predicting this coincidence, Twain himself wrote:"The Almighty has said, no doubt:"Now, here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."
GLOSSARY
MASTERFUL: magistral / BITING: incisivo / WIT: ingenio / GILDED AGE: Edad Dorada / BUSTLING: bulliciosa / STEAMBOAT: barco de vapor / TYPESETTER: tipógrafo / TO FIGURE OUT: averiguar / TO BREAK OUT: estallar / GOLD RUSH: la fiebre del oro / PEN NAME: pseudónimo / SLANG: jerga / FATHOM: braza / BREAKTHROUGH: éxito decisivo / TO MOCK ridiculizar / STUFFINESS:rigidez / COMING-OF-AGE TALE: relato de iniciación / LIGHT-HEARTED: desenfadado. / MISCHIEVOUS:travieso / TO TACKLE: abordar / TO COME UPON: encontrarse con / PROMPT:inmediato / TO OUTLIVE: sobrevivir a / GREED: codicia / WHIPPING: flagelación / SIBLINGS:hermanos / SCORN:desprecio / PRETENCE:afectación / MEANNESS:mezquindad / OUTSIZED:extraordinario / UNRULY:rebelde / PERSONA:imagen pública / ALMIGHTY:poderoso / FREAKS: rarezas /
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