yuèdòusī dì fēn · lǐ kē kè Stephen Leacockzài散文天地dezuòpǐn!!! | |||
jìn guǎn lǐ kē kè de zhèng shì zhí yè shì dà xué de zhèng zhì jīng jì xué jiào shòu， ér qiě tā yě chū bǎn guò hǎo jǐ běn zhuān yè zhù zuò， dàn tā zài zhè fāng miàn de míng shēng yuǎn bù rú tā zuò wéi yī wèi yōu mò zuò jiā de míng shēng dà。
lǐ kē kè 'èr shí jǐ suì jiù kāi shǐ xiě zuò yōu mò xiǎo pǐn， tā de dì yī bù yōu mò xiǎo pǐn jí zǐ（ qí zhōng shōu jí liǎo tā yú 1891 nián zhì 1899 nián qī jiān suǒ xiě de zuò pǐn） chū bǎn yú 1910 nián（ jí mǎ kè · tù wēn hé 'ōu · hēng lì xiāng jì qù shì de nà yī nián）， qí shí zuò zhě yǐ jīng 40 suì， cǐ hòu tā biàn bǐ gēng bù chuò， zài cóng zhè shí dào tā 1944 nián qù shì wéi zhǐ de sān shí jǐ nián qī jiān tā suī yě xiě guò yī xiē qí tā xíng shì de wén xué zuò pǐn rú shī gē、 jù běn、 zhuànjì yǐ jí wén xué lǐ lùn děng， dàn tā běn rén zuì xǐ 'ài de yě shì xiěde zuì duō de zé shì yōu mò xiǎo pǐn， gòng yòu jiāng jìn 30 gè jí zǐ。
lǐ kē kè de yōu mò shì yī zhǒng dàn dàn de、 hán xù de yōu mò， tā bù shì kào qí tè、 huá jī de gù shì qíng jié lái bǎ dú zhě dòu dé hā hā dà xiào， ér shì shàn yú cóng píng dàn wú qí de rì cháng shēng huó zhōng tí liàn chū yī xiē wéi dà jiā sī kōng jiàn guàn què yòu wǎng wǎng shú shì wú dǔ de kě xiào de hé bù hé lǐ de dōng xī jiā yǐ fàng dà hòu chéng xiàn zài dú zhě miàn qián， ràng tā men chǎn shēng gòng míng 'ér fā chū huì xīn de wēi xiào huò wú nài de kǔ xiào； bìng qiě tā de zuò pǐn yě bù shì ràng rén kàn guò xiào guò jiù wán， ér shì shí fēn nài jǔjué、 yòu huí wèi， fā rén shēnxǐng。
lǐ kē kè wú lùn xiě jǐng xiě shì hái shì xiě rén， bǐ fǎ dū shí fēn xì nì； yóu qí shì zài kè huá rén wù fāng miàn tā gèng jù yòu dú tè de běn lǐng。 tā zài《 mǔ qīn jié》 hé《 wǔ shí liù hào》 zhōng fēn bié sù zào de yī wèi yī nián dào tóu zhōng rì wéi quán jiā mò mò cāo láo 'ér bié wú tā qiú de mǔ qīn hé yī wèi shàn yú guān chá xiǎng xiàng、 gǎn qíng fēng fù、 xīn dì shàn liáng de zhōng guó xǐ yī diàn zhù rén 'ā rén zhè liǎng gè chéng gōng de wén xué xíng xiàng lìng rén jiǔ jiǔ nán wàng。 cǐ wài， zài zhè 12 piān jīng xuǎn de yōu mò xiǎo pǐn lǐ nǐ jiāng yào jié shí de rén wù hái yòu： chū cì yǔ yínháng dǎ jiāo dào jīng huáng shī cuò de xiǎo zhí yuán； zì yǐ wéi yuè lì fēng fù、 néng yìng fù rèn hé jú miàn 'ér zhōng yú shàngdàng shòu piàn de “ lǎo yú shì gù zhě ”； gěi rén zhàoxiàng yī wèi zhuī qiú“ xíng xiàng měi” ér quán rán bù gù zhào piàn yǔ zhēn rén shì fǒu xiāng xiàng de shè yǐng shī； wèile tuī xiāo cún huò 'ér bù xī mēngpiàn dú zhě de shū shāng； bù guǎn bié rén shì fǒu yuàn yì、 yìng yào gěi rén“ bāng máng” shèn zhì yuè zǔ dài pào de“ rè xīn rén”； bù 'ān rén qíng shì gù、 bù huì shuō jiǎ huà、 zhōng yú dǎo zhì bēi cǎn xià chǎng de lǎo shí rén； shì shì zhuī běn qióng yuán、 yī bèi zǐ dōuzài zǒu huí tóu lù de dàotuì zhě； bù dǒng zhuāng dǒng、 zuò liǎo yuān dà tóu hái zì míng dé yì、 jīn jīn lè dào de bào fā hù； fù jí wú liáo、 yú mèi qīng xìn de kuò tài tài； yǐ jí guān kàn yǎn chū shí zì zuò cōng míng、 dà shā fēng jǐng、 zuì hòu zì shí qí guǒ de“ cōng mǐn rén”。 zhè yī gè gè zài yòu xiàn de piān fú lǐ chū xiàn de shēn fèn bù tóng、 miàn mù gè yì de xǔ xǔ rú shēng， shǐ rén yòu sì céng xiāng shí zhī gǎn de kě jìng、 kě 'ài、 kě lián、 kě xiào、 kě bǐ、 kě bēi de shí fēn xiān míng de rén wù xíng xiàng， shēng dòng dì zhǎn xiàn liǎo zuò zhě kè huá rén wù de fēi fán cái néng， xiāng xìn huì gěi dú zhě dài lái jù dà de yì shù xiǎng shòu hé mǎn zú。
Early life
Leacock was born in Swanmore, near Bishop's Waltham, Hampshire, England, and at the age of six moved to Canada with his family, which settled on a farm in Egypt, Ontario, near the village of Sutton and the shores of Lake Simcoe. While the family had been well off in England (the Leacocks had made a fortune in Madeira and lived on an estate called Oak Hill on the Isle of Wight), Leacock's father, Peter, had been banished from the manor for marrying Agnes Butler without his parents' permission. The farm in the Georgina township of York County was not a success and the family (Leacock was the third of eleven children) was kept afloat by money sent by Leacock's grandfather. Peter Leacock became an alcoholic.
Stephen Leacock, always of obvious intelligence, was sent by his grandfather to the elite private school of Upper Canada College in Toronto, also attended by his older brothers, where he was top of the class and was chosen as head boy. In 1887, defending his mother and siblings against his father's alcoholic abuse, Leacock ordered him from the family home and he was never seen again. That same year, seventeen-year-old Leacock started at University College at the University of Toronto, where he was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity, but found he could not resume the following year because of financial difficulties.
He left university to go to work teaching — an occupation he disliked immensely — at Strathroy, Uxbridge and finally in Toronto. As a teacher at Upper Canada College, his alma mater, he was able simultaneously to attend classes at the University of Toronto and, in 1891, earn his degree through part-time studies. It was during this period that his first writing was published in The Varsity, a campus newspaper.
[edit]Academic and political life
Disillusioned with teaching, in 1899 he began graduate studies at the University of Chicago, where he received a doctorate in political science and political economy. He moved from Chicago, Illinois to Montreal, Quebec, where he became a lecturer and long-time acting head of the political economy department at McGill University.
He was closely associated with Sir Arthur Currie, former commander of the Canadian Corps in the Great War and principal of McGill from 1919 until his death in 1933. In fact, Currie had been a student observing Leacock's practice teaching in Strathroy in 1888. In 1936, Leacock was forcibly retired by the McGill Board of Governors—an unlikely prospect had Currie lived.
Leacock was both a social conservative and a partisan Conservative. He opposed women's rights (including the right to vote), and disliked non-Anglo-Saxon immigration and supported the introduction of social welfare legislation. He was a staunch champion of the British Empire and went on lecture tours to further the cause.
Although he was considered as a candidate for Dominion elections by his party, it declined to invite the author, lecturer, and maverick to stand for election. Nevertheless, he would stump for local candidates at his summer home.
[edit]Literary life
Stephen Leacock House in Orillia, Ontario
Early in his career, Leacock turned to fiction, humour, and short reports to supplement (and ultimately exceed) his regular income. His stories, first published in magazines in Canada and the United States and later in novel form, became extremely popular around the world. It was said in 1911 that more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada. Also, between the years 1915 and 1925, Leacock was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world.
A humorist particularly admired by Leacock was Robert Benchley from New York. Leacock opened correspondence with Benchley, encouraging him in his work and importuning him to compile his work into a book. Benchley did so in 1922, and acknowledged the nagging from north of the border.
Near the end of his life, the American comedian Jack Benny recounted how he had been introduced to Leacock's writing by Groucho Marx when they were both young vaudeville comedians. Benny acknowledged Leacock's influence and, fifty years after first reading him, still considered Leacock one of his favorite comic writers. He was puzzled as to why Leacock's work was no longer well-known in the United States.
During the summer months, Leacock lived at Old Brewery Bay, his summer estate in Orillia, across Lake Simcoe from where he was raised and also bordering Lake Couchiching. A working farm, Old Brewery Bay is now a museum and National Historic Site of Canada. Gossip provided by the local barber, Jefferson Short, provided Leacock with the material which would become Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), set in the thinly-disguised Mariposa.
Although he wrote learned articles and books related to his field of study, his political theory is now all but forgotten. Leacock was awarded the Royal Society of Canada's Lorne Pierce Medal in 1937, nominally for his academic work.
[edit]Death and tributes
In 1900 Leacock married Beatrix ("Trix") Hamilton, niece of Sir Henry Pellatt (who had built Casa Loma, the largest castle in North America). In 1915 — after 15 years of marriage — the couple had their only child, Stephen Lushington Leacock. While Leacock doted on the boy, it became apparent early on that "Stevie" suffered from a lack of growth hormone. Growing to be only four feet tall, he had a love-hate relationship with Leacock, who tended to treat him like a child.
Predeceased by Trix (who had died of breast cancer in 1925), Leacock was survived by Stevie, who died in his fifties. In accordance with his wishes, after his death from throat cancer, Leacock was cremated and his ashes were buried at Sibbald Point in Georgina Township, near his boyhood home and across Lake Simcoe from his summer home.
Shortly after his death, Barbara Nimmo, his niece, literary executor and benefactor, published two major posthumous works: Last Leaves (1945) and The Boy I Left Behind Me (1946). His physical legacy was less treasured, and his abandoned summer cottage became derelict. It was rescued from oblivion when it was declared a National Historic Site of Canada in 1958 and ever since has operated as a museum called the Stephen Leacock Memorial Home.
In 1947, the Stephen Leacock Award was created to recognize the best in Canadian literary humour. In 1969, the centennial of his birth, Canada Post issued a six cent stamp with his image on it. The following year, the Stephen Leacock Centennial Committee had a plaque erected at his English birthplace and a mountain in the Yukon was named after him.
A number of buildings in Canada are named after Leacock, including the Stephen Leacock Building at McGill University, a theatre in Keswick, Ontario, and schools in Toronto and Ottawa.
[edit]Screen adaptations
Two Leacock short stories have been adapted as National Film Board of Canada animated shorts by Gerald Potterton: My Financial Career and The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones.
[edit]Bibliography
Elements of Political Science (1906)
Baldwin, Lafontaine, Hincks: Responsible Government (1907)
Practical Political Economy (1910)
Literary Lapses (1910)
includes "The New Food"
Nonsense Novels (1911)
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)
Behind the Beyond (1913)
Adventurers of the Far North (1914)
The Dawn of Canadian History (1914)
The Mariner of St. Malo (1914)
Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (1914)
Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy (1915)
Essays and Literary Studies (1916)
Further Foolishness (1916)
Frenzied Fiction (1918)
The Hohenzollerns in America (1919)
Winsome Winnie (1920)
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice (1920)
My Discovery of England (1922)
College Days (1923)
Over the Footlights (1923)
The Garden of Folly (1924)
Mackenzie, Baldwin, Lafontaine, Hincks (1926)
Winnowed Wisdom (1926)
Short Circuits (1928)
The Iron Man and the Tin Woman (1929)
Economic Prosperity in the British Empire (1930)
The Economic Prosperity of the British Empire (1931)
The Dry Pickwick (1932)
Afternoons in Utopia (1932)
Mark Twain (1932)
Charles Dickens: His Life and Work (1933)
Humour: Its Theory and Technique, with Examples and Samples (1935)
Hellements of Hickonomics in Hiccoughs of Verse Done in Our Social Planning Mill (1936)
Funny Pieces (1936)
The Greatest Pages of American Humor (1936)
Here Are My Lectures (1937)
Humour and Humanity (1937)
My Discovery of the West (1937)
Model Memoirs (1938)
Too Much College (1939)
Our British Empire (1940)
Canada: The Foundations of Its Future (1941)
My Remarkable Uncle (1942)
Our Heritage of Liberty (1942)
Montreal: Seaport and City (1942)
Happy Stories (1943)
How to Write (1943)
Canada and the Sea (1944)
While There Is Time (1945)
Last Leaves (1945)
The Boy I Left Behind Me (1946)
Wet Wit and Dry Humor
Laugh with Leacock
Back to Prosperity
The Greatest Pages of Charles Dickens
Essays and Literary Studies
[edit]Quotes
"Lord Ronald ... flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions." -- Nonsense Novels, "Gertrude the Governess", 1911
"Professor Leacock has made more people laugh with the written word than any other living author. One may say he is one of the greatest jesters, the greatest humorist of the age." – A. P. Herbert
"Mr Leacock is as 'bracing' as the seaside place of John Hassall's famous poster. His wisdom is always humorous, and his humour is always wise." – Sunday Times
"He is still inimitable. No one, anywhere in the world, can reduce a thing to ridicule with such few short strokes. He is the Grock of literature." – Evening Standard
"I detest life-insurance agents: they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so."