Stephen Butler Leacock

Stephen Butler Leacock graduated as the school's top student in 1887 and entered the University of Toronto. During college, he spent all his time learning multiple languages. He studied the language for sixteen hours a day and turned a deaf ear to what was going on outside the window. Word of wisdom: A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant can easily think that he is taller than the giant.

Chinese name: Stephen Butler Leacock

Foreign name: Stephen Butler Leacock

Nationality: Canada

Birthplace: England Swanmoor, Hampshire

Date of birth: December 30, 1869

Date of death: March 28, 1944

Occupation: Literature Novelist, writer

Graduation institution: University of Toronto, University of Chicago

Main achievements: Famous Canadian humorist

Considered to be the successor to Mark Twain Humorist

Representative works: "The Love Story of Spilkins"; "My Financial Career"; "New Foods"

Introduction

Stephen ·Butler Leacock (Stephen Butler Leacock) is a famous Canadian humorist and the first Canadian writer to enjoy world reputation; in the United States, he is considered the most popular humorist after Mark Twain. He was born on December 30, 1869 in Swanmoor, Hampshire, England; in 1876, when he was 6 years old, he moved to Canada with his parents and was educated there. After graduating from the University of Toronto in 1891, he worked as a middle school teacher for 8 years. In 1899, he entered the University of Chicago to study economics and political science. In 1903, he received a doctorate in political economics and began teaching at McGill University in Canada. He successively served as a political lecturer. Lecturer, Associate Professor of Politics and History, Professor of Political Economy and Head of the Department of Politics and Economics; retired from teaching in 1936 and served as Honorary Professor of the school; died in Toronto on March 28, 1944.

Biography

Stephen Butler Leacock was born on December 30, 1869 in Swanmoor, Hampshire, England.

In 1876, when he was 6 years old, he moved to Canada with his parents and received education there.

After graduating from the University of Toronto in 1891, he worked as a middle school teacher for 8 years.

In 1899, he entered the University of Chicago to study economics and political science.

Received a doctorate in philosophy in political economics in 1903 and began teaching at McGill University in Canada. He successively served as a lecturer in political science, an associate professor of politics and history, a professor of political economy, and the head of the Department of Politics and Economics. .

In 1936, he retired from his teaching position and served as an honorary professor of the school.

Died in Toronto on March 28, 1944.

Writing Career

In England

Stephen Butler Leacock was born in Hampshire, England. Shortly after his father Lee Kirk Sr. got married, he took his wife Alice Butler Lee Kirk south to the Atlantic to try his luck in Africa. As a result, they had no luck and had to return to England. Later, Kirk Lee set his sights on the North American continent. In 1876, when Kirk Lee was seven years old, Kirk Lee, a down-and-out citizen of the British Empire, led his family to immigrate to the Canadian Dominion under the British Empire. They settled in Tin on the shores of Lake Ontario. He settled on the shore of Lake Mko and eked out a living by reclaiming wasteland. It was a difficult period for Canadian agriculture at that time, and as the family later had eleven children, Lee Kirk, the third eldest child, naturally did not have a good life in his childhood and adolescence. With such a family background, Li Keke could only find a way out through his own efforts.

Toronto

Lee Kirk received his secondary education at the Canadian Public School in Toronto. After hard work, he graduated as the top student in the school in 1887 and was promoted to University of Toronto.

During college, he spent all his time learning multiple languages. He studied the language for sixteen hours a day and turned a deaf ear to what was going on outside the window. Regarding that experience, he later recalled: "Shortly after graduation, I forgot all the languages ??I had learned and found myself intellectually bankrupt. In other words, I became a so-called outstanding graduate. With this qualification, I can only work as a teacher, a profession that requires neither experience nor intelligence." He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1891 and taught in public schools in Canada. The experience during this period made him understand the world. I have a deeper understanding of the ups and downs.

In the United States

In 1899, he resigned from his teaching position angrily and borrowed only a few months' money to go to the United States alone. He studied political economics at the University of Chicago and did some work at the same time. Working part-time to make ends meet. Soon, he became a graduate student in the Department of Political Economy. In 1903 he received his doctorate. In this regard, he once said: "This degree means that I took the last exam in my life and got full marks. From then on, I can no longer accept new ideas." Soon, he returned to Canada and studied at McGill University. Became a teacher, first as a lecturer in political science and later as professor and director of the Department of Political Economy. During this period, he got married, and the improvement of his living and working conditions gave him more time and energy to create his own spiritual world.

From the time he taught at McGill University to 1910, Lee Kirk published many professional papers and also wrote the monograph "Principles of Political Economy" which brought him huge income. Professionally, It can be said to be quite an achievement. But if the book "Literary Lapses" (Literary Lapses) had not been published in 1910, perhaps not many of us would know about him today, which would undoubtedly be a great loss to world literature. "Literary Missteps" was warmly welcomed by readers in English-speaking countries as soon as it came out. This year he was already over forty and could be described as a late bloomer. Just as people were cheering for the birth of a new humorist, Kirk Lee followed up with the publication of "Nonsense Novels" in 1911. The publication of this book further enhanced Kirk Lee's reputation. building. Next in 1912, Lee Kirk published his famous humorous novel "Sunshine Sketches of Little Town" (Sunshine Sketches of Little Town). The publication of this book established his unshakable and irreplaceable position in the history of Canadian literature. Since then, Lee Kirk has released humorous works one after another, among which the more famous ones include "Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich" (1914), "Moonbeams from the Larger Luna Cy" (1915), and "Furthur F. Fishness". , 1916), Frenzied Fiction (1918), The Garden of Folly (1924), Wnnowed Wisdom (1926), Model Memofrs (1939), and I "My Remarkable Uncle" (1942), etc. In addition, Lee Kirk also wrote a monograph on humor theory "Humour: Its Theory and Technique" (1935), "Mark Twain" (1932) and "Critical Biography of Dickens" (Charles lnckens) : His LwandWOr, 1933), it can be seen that he has painstakingly studied humor in depth.

Main works

"The Love Story of Spilkins", "My Financial Career", "New Foods", "Point out his faults", "The Magician" "The Revenge", "Drill" Quito of Ghent", "The Mystery of the World", "The Knights of the Sun God's Lake Tour", "Public Readers", "Mr. Bart's Delusion", "How to Become" "The Millionaire", "A New Theory of Pathology", "A, B and C", "Back to the Jungle", "The Mystery of Mariposa Bank", "A Hero of the Common Man", "The Photographer's Play", " How to live to be 200 years old", "Number 56", "The Self-Made Man", "The Candidate Mr. Smith", "Submerged in the Seaweed", "The Sorrow of a Super Soul", "Unknown Friends", "The Tragic Fate of Mr. Jones", "Borrowing Matches", "The Man in the Asbestos Suit", "Governess Gertrude", "Q", "Zanna Pepale and Peter Pupkin" "Destined Marriage" etc.

Creative characteristics

1. Use caricatured images and behavioral descriptions to depict characters and create a comic atmosphere. For example, the reptilian images of the British Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury in "Mystery" are also amazing. There are many such examples and I won’t go into details.

2. Create comedy effects through witty dialogues. In "The Opinion of a Great Actor", the great actor is not satisfied with others saying that he will appear in Shakespeare's plays. He retorts: "To put it more appropriately, it should be that Shakespeare is about to appear in my art." (This It reminds me of a wise saying: A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant can easily think that he is taller than the giant.) Such dialogues are both interesting and thought-provoking. Kirk Lee always strives to elicit profound laughter.

3. Create a comedy atmosphere with an innocent and innocent tone. In Lee Kirk's works, the narrator of the story (in fact, it can also be said to be Lee Kirk himself) often shows a child-like innocence from time to time, and readers can feel the comfort of childlike interest and humor from between the lines. For example, in "Governess Gertrude", the narrator describes everyone's love for Gertrude in this way:

4. The protagonists in Lee Kirk's works often show this kind of innocence brilliant. For example, in "The Sorrow of a Super Soul", Otto asked the heroine "I" for a diamond belt buckle as a token one day, the next day he asked for a gold ruble, and the third day he asked "I" "Is there another gold ruble. Readers can see at a glance that Otto is a greedy man, but "I" have always been naive and stubborn.

Creative Thoughts

In Lee Kirk's mind, humor has a very high status. He said: "In terms of the best and greatest humorous works in the world, humor may be the highest achievement of our human civilization." In order to better understand Kirk Lee's humorous works, we have It is necessary to have an understanding of Kirk Lee's view of humor. In "My View of Humor", Lee Kirk reveals to us such a strange and interesting phenomenon: "If necessary, anyone is willing to admit that they have poor eyesight, or that they can't swim, or that their marksmanship is terrible. But if you say he lacks a sense of humor, he will get angry." This phenomenon undoubtedly shows us how important humor and sense of humor are to a person. Whether a person has a sense of humor is at least an important indicator of whether he has understanding, wisdom and a broad mind. In Lee Kirk's view, good humor must essentially meet the following two conditions: First, it must not hurt people and contain no malice. Second, it should not, even occasionally, show any real scenes of sorrow, pain, and death. Based on these two points of understanding, Lee Kirk neither appreciates the so-called humor of pranks and schadenfreude, nor the humor of despair shrouded in the shadow of death. He believes that these two so-called humors are devilish, and at best can only stimulate the primitive pleasure of barbarians, but are not enough to promote the improvement of human spirit and civilization. Lee Kirk's humorous works are full of kindness and sympathy for human beings, which may be attributed to his first understanding of the necessary conditions for humor.

From the second point of understanding, we can imagine that if he had lived longer, he probably would not have appreciated the "laughter under the gallows" - black humor that later appeared. Lee Kirk witnessed the tragic reality of World War I and World War II during his lifetime, but his works between 1918 and 1944 did not seem to touch much on war and its disasters. This may also be attributed to the second point of understanding. In a sense, this may be a shortcoming and regret of Lee Kirk's creation.

Literary Achievements

In many of his works, Kirk Lee artistically expressed the embarrassment, pain and sorrow of life through humor and satire, and mocked human beings with compassion and compassion. Many human weaknesses, such as selfishness, arrogance, greed, hypocrisy, etc., while criticizing the inequality, injustice and other shortcomings of human society, also send out an invitation to laugh at human compassion, benevolence and dedication. His humor, forged with superb artistic skills and profound life quality, combines the spirit of comedy and the consciousness of tragedy, which can not only make people laugh, but also make people think. His brilliant achievements in the art of humor and his personal charm have won him the heartfelt love of countless readers around the world. Nowadays, when people talk about Canadian literature, the first or most talked about person is probably Lee Kirk. No wonder Canadians today often proudly say: Britain has Dickens, the United States has Mark Twain, and Canada has Lee Kirk.

Personal Impact

Lee Kirk died of throat cancer on March 28, 1944. In order to commemorate this master of humor, the Canadian Lee Kirk Research Association established the Lee Kirk Humor Award in 1946, which is awarded every year to the author of Canada's best humor works. The town of Orillia, where Kirk Lee lived and used as the model for Mariposa Town, has now been renamed "Sunny Town". The townspeople who were used as the prototypes of the characters in "Small Town Sun" by Kirk Lee and were once dissatisfied because they felt they were being ridiculed and vilified, never imagined that they would be attracted by Lee Kirk's "Small Town Sun". He left his name in literary historical materials, thereby "hitchhiking" and gaining a certain sense of immortality.

Schematic of the work

"New Food"

I read this news from the current affairs column of the newspaper: "Professor Plum of the University of Chicago recently invented It is a highly concentrated food. All the nutrients needed by the human body are concentrated in small pills. The nutritional content of each pill is one to two hundred times that of one ounce of ordinary food. Forming various nutrients necessary for the human body. Professor Plum is confident that this invention can bring a revolution to the current food structure. "

In terms of its advantages, this kind of food may be the best. , but it also has its shortcomings. It is not difficult to imagine that in the future years envisioned by Professor Plum, something like this may happen: a joyful family sitting around a hospitable table. The decorations on the table are rich. There is a soup plate in front of each smiling child, a bucket of hot water in front of the radiant mother, and the Christmas dinner of this happy family is placed at the head of the table - it It was placed on a playing card and respectfully covered with a thimble. The children whispered to each other in anticipation, but as soon as their father stood up, they fell silent. The father opened the thimble, and a small concentrated nutrient nine suddenly appeared on the playing card in front of him. Wow! Christmas turkey, wild cherry jam, plum pudding, mince pie - it's all there, all concentrated in that little ball, just waiting to be swelled with water! The father's eyes flickered back and forth between Wanzi and heaven several times, and then he began to bless loudly with sincere piety.

At this moment, the mother let out a painful scream. "Oh, Henry, hurry up! The baby has captured Jiuzi." It's absolutely true. Their precious son, Gustavus Adolphus, the little blond boy, grabbed the whole Christmas cake from the playing cards and stuffed it into his mouth. Three hundred and fifty pounds of concentrated nutrients rolled down the esophagus of the child who didn't know the heights of the world. "Pat him on the back!" cried the panicked mother. "Give him some water!" This thought was fatal. The son began to swell as soon as it saw water.

First there was a muffled gurgling sound coming from the little baby's belly, followed by a terrible explosion - Gustav. Adolphus was blown to pieces.

When the family pieced the child's little body together, a smile lingered on his open lips. Only the child who ate thirteen Christmas meals in one go, That's why I have such a smile.