THE HUMOR OF MARK TWAIN

1. THE HUMOR OF MARK TWAIN Brady Haering Pd. CD

2. Dictionary Definition Humor: the faculty of expressing the amusing or comical. Mark Twain’s Definition- Humor: “Humor is the good natured side of truth.”

3. Twain’s Definition of Humor Humor: “Humor is the good natured side of truth.”

4. Twain’s Thoughts About Humor 1 “Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations, and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.”- What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us

5. Twain’s use of humor began early: In 1851, he began working as a typesetter and contributor of articles and humorous sketches for the Hannibal Journal. The Young Humorist

6. Twain’s Thoughts About Humor 2 “I pity the fellow who has to create a dialect or paraphrase the dictionary to get laughs. I can't spell, but I have never stooped to spell cat with a 'k' to get at your funny bone. I love a drink, but I never encouraged drunkenness by harping on its alleged funny side.”- quoted in Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field

7. The Jumping Frog Twain’s humor first shows in his short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

8. Tom Sawyer Twain’s humor was seen by as wide audience in his first major success. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

9. Huckleberry Finn Following the success of Tom Sawyer, Twain wrote a novel about thte travels of Tom’s best friend, Huckleberry Finn. [Twain] describes Huck as "idle, and lawless, and vulgar, and bad," qualities for which he was admired by all the children in the village, although their mothers "cordially hated and dreaded" him.

10. Twain’s Thoughts About Humor 3 What is it that strikes a spark of humor from a man? It is the effort to throw off, to fight back the burden of grief that is laid on each one of us. In youth we don't feel it, but as we grow to manhood we find the burden on our shoulders. Humor? It is nature's effort to harmonize conditions. The further the pendulum swings out over woe the further it is bound to swing back over mirth. - Interview in New York World Sunday Magazine, November 26, 1905

11. 1601 1601: Controversial short story about the daily life of Queen Elizabeth told through a servant’s journal.

12. Pudd’nhead Wilson With Pudd’nhead Wilson, Sawyer again shows a similar yet unique way to express humor, and satirize the eccentricities of southern living.

13. A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court In this novel Twain again looks at the ways of generations past in a comical manner. The book follows a man from the 1800s who, after a bump on the head, wakes up in the 6th century.

14. King Leopold’s Soliloquy In King Leopold’s Soliloquy, Twain uses satire to ridicule King Leopold of the Congo Free State who had mistreated and exploited the nation that he created.

15. Twain’s Thoughts On Humor 4 LOVE PITY KIDNESS “The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness--your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture....He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher.”- Notes on Thackeray's Essay on Swift

16. An American Style of Humor Twain was an American humorist and therefore was more acquainted to the American style. Twain himself said this about English humor: “English humor is hard to appreciate, though, unless you are trained to it. The English papers, in reporting my speeches, always put 'laughter' in the wrong place.” Cartoon entitled: “Mark Twain in London, San Francisco Call, July 8, 1907

17. Premature Obituary After his obituary was mistakenly published, Mark Twain sent a cable from London stating "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

18. The Seriousness Of Humor “Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.”-Mark Twain

19. “A joke is a very serious thing.”-Winston Churchill

21. My Favorite Twain Quote Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.- "The Chronicle of Young Satan," Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts