【欧亨利英文简介】谁能提供一下欧亨利的英文个人介绍啊？_英语_cqfc817
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O.Henry (O.Henry,September 11,1862-June 5,1910),also translated O'Henry,William Sidney Porter (William Sydney Porter) pseudonym.美国小说家,其短篇小说构思精巧,风格独特,以欧·亨利式结尾扬名与世.American novelist,short story ideas elegance and unique style,to Europe Henri-end fame with the world.
欧·亨利生于美国北卡罗莱纳州格林斯伯格,父亲是个医师,三岁丧母,由祖母和姑母抚养长大.Henry was born in Europe and the United States Gelinshibage North Carolina,the father is a doctor,three-year-old mother,grandmother and aunt brought up.他很喜欢读书,但是15岁时被迫离开了学校.He is fond of reading,but when the 15-year-old was forced to leave the school.他到德克萨斯州谋生,当过药剂师、绘图员、记者和出纳等,1882年,他在德州奥斯汀结婚.Texas him to make a living,worked as a pharmacist,draftsmen,reporters and cashier,in 1882,he married in Austin,Texas.1884年,他创办幽默杂志《滚石》,不久失败,他到《休斯顿邮报》当记者和专栏作家.In 1884,he founded humor magazine "Rolling Stone",the near failure,he of the "Houston Post" When reporters and columnists.1887年,他被控告在银行工作时挪用公款.In 1887,he was charged in a bank embezzlement when.1898年,被判处五年徒刑,锒铛入狱.In 1898 was sentenced to five years in prison,and were imprisoned.
在狱中,为了供给自己的女儿上学,他开始写短篇故事.In prison,in order to supply their daughters to school,he began to write short stories.1901年他出狱,移居纽约居住,开始创作生涯,正式使用欧·亨利这个笔名.He was released from prison in 1901 and moved to New York to live and started writing career,it officially used the pen name O.Henry.1904年他第一个集子《白菜与国王》出版.In 1904 his first collection,"King of cabbage and" publication.1906年《四百万》出版,其中包括他最著名的作品《珍贵的礼物》和杰作《警察与赞美诗》、《二十年后》、《带家具出租的房间》,这些短篇小说集中体现了欧·亨利关心社会底层小人物,着重刻画微妙的感情的写作风格.1906 "four million" published,including his most famous works are "precious gift" and the masterpiece "The Cop and the Anthem "" Twenty years later "," furnished rooms " These short stories concentrated expression of the EU to care about the bottom Henry Little People,focusing on the delicate describe the feelings of the writing style.欧·亨利笔调幽默,善于使用双关语并且小说的结尾都出乎意料而又合乎情理,这就是著名的欧·亨利式结尾.O.Henry style of humor and the good use of Puns and novels to the end and are surprisingly reasonable.This is the famous European Henri-end.由于他写的都是平常生活,情节和文笔又吸引人,所以颇受欢迎.As he wrote are normal life,circumstances,and also writes attractive,so popular.1907年欧亨利创作了《最后一片常春藤叶》,作品文字朴实,但感情浓郁,给予人很大的感动.1907 Ouhengli created a "final one ivy leaf," plain language works,but emotionally rich,given strong moved.1910年他创作了也许是他最轻松幽默的作品《红毛酋长的赎金》,让人忍俊不禁.In 1910 he created perhaps his most humorous work "Fort Emirates ransom," people simmer with laughter.
欧·亨利晚年开始酗酒,身体情况恶化.European Henry started alcoholism old age,physical deterioration.1907年他再次结婚,但和妻子不和,一年后即离婚.In 1907 he married again,and the wife and,a year after the divorce.他的经济情况也不好,为了缓解生活压力,他不得不以很快速度创作小说来换取稿费,这也导致了他的作品的质量参差不齐.He's not a good economic situation,in order to ease the pressure,he had to quickly speed novels in exchange for money he This also led to his works of uneven quality.1910年欧·亨利因肝硬化去世.1910 O.Henry died due to cirrhosis.1919年设立欧·亨利奖,一年颁发一次,表彰优秀的短篇故事.1919 established the European Henry Award,the first year presented in recognition of outstanding short stories.每年五月在奥斯汀的欧亨利博物馆还会举办世界双关语锦标赛.May each year in Austin,the museum will organize Ouhengli Puns world championships.
来自“http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AC%A7%C2%B7%E4%BA%A8%E5%88%A9”From "http ://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AC%A7%C2%B7% E4%BA%A8%E5%88%A9 "
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O. Henry is the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910). Porter wrote around 400 short stories in his lifetime and raised the short story to a literary ar...
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题1： 【求欧亨利的英文简介~一定要是英语的,不论长短啦~】[英语科目]
O. Henry was the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862–June 5, 1910), whose clever use of twist endings in his stories popularized the term "O. Henry Ending". His middle name at birth was Sidney, not Sydney; he later changed the spelling of his middle name when he first began writing as a journalist in the 1880s.
Early life
William Sidney Porter was born in 1862 on a plantation "Worth Place" in Greensboro, North Carolina. When William was three, his mother died from tuberculosis, and he and his father moved to the home of his paternal grandmother.
William was an avid reader, and graduated from his aunt's elementary school in 1876, then enrolled at the Linsey Street High School. In 1879 he started working as a bookkeeper in his uncle's drugstore and in 1881 – at the age of nineteen – he was licensed as a pharmacist.
The Move to Texas
He relocated to Texas in 1882, initially working on a ranch in La Salle County as a sheep herder and ranch hand, then Austin where he took a number of different jobs over the next several years, including pharmacist, draftsman, journalist, and clerk. While in Texas he also learned Spanish.
In 1887 he eloped with Athol Estes, then eighteen years old and from a wealthy family. Her family objected to the match because both she and Porter suffered from tuberculosis. Athol gave birth to a son in 1888, who died shortly after birth, and then a daughter, Margaret, in 1889.
In 1894 Porter started a humorous weekly called The Rolling Stone. Also in 1894, Porter resigned from the First National Bank of Austin where he had worked as a teller, after he was accused of embezzling funds. In 1895, after The Rolling Stone ceased publication, he moved to Houston, where he started writing for the Houston Post. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested for embezzlement in connection with his previous employment in Austin.
Flight and Return
Porter was granted bond, but the day before he was due to stand trial on July 7, 1896, he absconded to New Orleans and later to Honduras. However, in 1897, when he learned that his wife was dying, he returned to the United States and surrendered to the court, pending an appeal.
Athol Estes Porter died July 25, 1897. Porter was found guilty of embezzlement, sentenced to five years jail, and imprisoned April 25, 1898 at the Ohio State Penitentiary. He was released on July 24, 1901 for good behaviour after serving three years.
Origin of Pen Name
Porter published at least twelve stories while in prison to help support his daughter. Not wanting his readers to know he was in jail, he started using the pen name "O. Henry". It is believed that Porter got this name from one of the guards who was named Orrin Henry. However, there is much debate on this issue: one Porter biographer asserts that the name was derived from a girlfriend's cat, which answered to "Oh, Henry!" Guy Davenport, meanwhile, wrote that the name was a condensation of "Ohio Penitentiary". It also could be an abbreviation of the name of French pharmacist, Etienne-Ossian Henry, who is referred to in the U.S. Dispensatory, a reference work Porter used when he was in the prison pharmacy. Further confusing the issue is that for at least one short story, and for a later autobiographical author profile, Porter signed the "full" name Olivier Henry.
Porter also used a number of other noms de plume, most notably "Alex, Longford", and continued using a variety of pen names full-time when he took a writing contract for Ainslee's Magazine in New York City shortly after his release from prison. Eventually, "O. Henry" became the name that was most recognized by magazine editors and the reading public, and therefore led to the greatest fees for story sales. Accordingly, after about 1903 Porter used the "O. Henry" byline exclusively.
In fact, after his prison term Porter almost never identified himself in print by his real name, even in private correspondence to close friends. To editors, he was simply O. Henry (or occasionally Olivier Henry). When writing to friends, however, he would routinely sign his letters with one of a wide range of deliberately nonsensical pseudonyms, such as "Horatio Swampwater".
A Brief Stay At The Top
Porter married again in 1907 to his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Lindsey Coleman. However, despite the success of his short stories being published in magazines and collections (or perhaps because of the attendant pressure success brought), Porter became an alcoholic. Sarah left him in 1909, and he died in 1910 of cirrhosis of the liver. After funeral services in New York City, he was buried in Asheville, North Carolina. His daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, died in 1927 and was buried with her father.
Attempts were made to secure a presidential pardon for Porter during the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. However, each attempt was met with the assertion that the Justice Department did not recommend pardons after death. This policy was clearly altered during the administration of Bill Clinton (who pardoned Henry Flipper), so the question of a pardon for O. Henry may yet again see the light of day.
Stories
O. Henry stories are famous for their surprise endings. He was called the American Guy De Maupassant. Both authors wrote twist endings, but O. Henry stories were much more playful and optimistic.
Most of O.Henry's stories are set in his own time, the early years of the 20th century. Many take place in New York City, and deal for the most part with ordinary people: clerks, policemen, waitresses. His stories are also well known for witty narration.
The Four Million (a collection of stories) opens with a reference to Ward McAllister's "assertion that there were only 'Four Hundred' people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen—the census taker—and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the 'Four Million'". To O. Henry, everyone in New York counted. He had an obvious affection for the city, which he called Baghdad on the Subway, and many of his stories are set there—but others are set in small towns and in other cities.
His famous story A Municipal Report opens by quoting Frank Norris: "Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are 'story cities' — New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco." Thumbing his nose at Norris, O. Henry sets the story in Nashville.
Fundamentally a product of his time, O. Henry's work provides one of the best English examples of catching the entire flavor of an age. Whether roaming the cattle-lands of Texas, exploring the art of the "gentle grifter", or investigating the tensions of class and wealth in turn of the century New York, O. Henry had an inimitable hand for isolating some element of society and describing it with an incredible economy and grace of language. Some of his best and least-known work resides in the collection "Cabbages and Kings", a series of stories which each explore some individual aspect of life in a paralytically sleepy South American town while each advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another in a complex structure which slowly explicates its own background even as it painstakingly erects a town which is one of the most detailed literary creations of the period.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. O. Henry is so famous for his unexpected plot twists that this warning is especially important.
A famous story of his, "The Gift of the Magi", concerns a young couple who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim's watch; unbeknownst to Della, Jim sells his most valuable possession, his watch, to buy jeweled combs for Della's hair. The essential premise of this story has been copied, re-worked, parodied, and otherwise re-told countless times in the century since it was written.
The Ransom of Red Chief concerns two men who kidnap a boy of ten. The boy turns out to be so bratty and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy's father two hundred and fifty dollars to take him back.
The Cop and the Anthem concerns a New York City hobo named Soapy, who sets out to get arrested so he can spend the cold winter as a guest of the city jail. Despite efforts at petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and "mashing", Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Disconsolate, he pauses in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life - whereupon he is promptly arrested for loitering.
In A Retrieved Reformation, safecracker Jimmy Valntine gets a job in a small town bank to case it for a robbery. Unexpectedly, he falls in love with the banker's daughter, and decides to go straight. Just as he's about to leave to deliver his specialized tools to an old associate, a lawman who recognizes him arrives at the bank, and a child locks herself in the airtight vault. Knowing it will seal his fate, Valentine cracks open the safe to rescue the child - and the lawman lets him go.
[edit] Cultural relations
O. Henry once said: "There are stories in everything. I've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts, and newspaper stands." [citation needed]
The O. Henry Awards are yearly prizes given to outstanding short stories.
The O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships are held in May of each year in Austin, Texas, hosted by the city's O. Henry Museum.
O. Henry is a household name in Russia, as his books enjoyed excellent translations and some of his stories were made into popular movies, the best known being, probably, "The Ransom of Red Chief". The phrase "Bolivar cannot carry double" from "The Roads We Take" has become a Russian proverbs, whose origin many Russians do not even recognize.
O. Henry's first wife, Athol, was probably the model for Della[1].
In 1952 a film featuring five O. Henry stories was made. The primary one from the critic's acclaim was "The Cop and the Anthem" starring Charles Laughton and Marilyn Monroe. The other stories are "The Clarion Call," "The Last Leaf," "The Ransom of Red Chief," and "The Gift of the Magi."
There is an O. Henry Middle School in Austin.
题2： 谁知道欧亨利的英文介绍?[英语科目]
O. Henry was the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862–June 5, 1910), whose clever use of twist endings in his stories popularized the term "O. Henry Ending". His middle name at birth was Sidney, not Sydney; he later changed the spelling of his middle name when he first began writing as a journalist in the 1880s.
Early life
William Sidney Porter was born in 1862 on a plantation "Worth Place" in Greensboro, North Carolina. When William was three, his mother died from tuberculosis, and he and his father moved to the home of his paternal grandmother.
William was an avid reader, and graduated from his aunt's elementary school in 1876, then enrolled at the Linsey Street High School. In 1879 he started working as a bookkeeper in his uncle's drugstore and in 1881 – at the age of nineteen – he was licensed as a pharmacist.
The Move to Texas
He relocated to Texas in 1882, initially working on a ranch in La Salle County as a sheep herder and ranch hand, then Austin where he took a number of different jobs over the next several years, including pharmacist, draftsman, journalist, and clerk. While in Texas he also learned Spanish.
In 1887 he eloped with Athol Estes, then eighteen years old and from a wealthy family. Her family objected to the match because both she and Porter suffered from tuberculosis. Athol gave birth to a son in 1888, who died shortly after birth, and then a daughter, Margaret, in 1889.
In 1894 Porter started a humorous weekly called The Rolling Stone. Also in 1894, Porter resigned from the First National Bank of Austin where he had worked as a teller, after he was accused of embezzling funds. In 1895, after The Rolling Stone ceased publication, he moved to Houston, where he started writing for the Houston Post. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested for embezzlement in connection with his previous employment in Austin.
Flight and Return
Porter was granted bond, but the day before he was due to stand trial on July 7, 1896, he absconded to New Orleans and later to Honduras. However, in 1897, when he learned that his wife was dying, he returned to the United States and surrendered to the court, pending an appeal.
Athol Estes Porter died July 25, 1897. Porter was found guilty of embezzlement, sentenced to five years jail, and imprisoned April 25, 1898 at the Ohio State Penitentiary. He was released on July 24, 1901 for good behaviour after serving three years.
Origin of Pen Name
Porter published at least twelve stories while in prison to help support his daughter. Not wanting his readers to know he was in jail, he started using the pen name "O. Henry". It is believed that Porter got this name from one of the guards who was named Orrin Henry. However, there is much debate on this issue: one Porter biographer asserts that the name was derived from a girlfriend's cat, which answered to "Oh, Henry!" Guy Davenport, meanwhile, wrote that the name was a condensation of "Ohio Penitentiary". It also could be an abbreviation of the name of French pharmacist, Etienne-Ossian Henry, who is referred to in the U.S. Dispensatory, a reference work Porter used when he was in the prison pharmacy. Further confusing the issue is that for at least one short story, and for a later autobiographical author profile, Porter signed the "full" name Olivier Henry.
Porter also used a number of other noms de plume, most notably "Alex, Longford", and continued using a variety of pen names full-time when he took a writing contract for Ainslee's Magazine in New York City shortly after his release from prison. Eventually, "O. Henry" became the name that was most recognized by magazine editors and the reading public, and therefore led to the greatest fees for story sales. Accordingly, after about 1903 Porter used the "O. Henry" byline exclusively.
In fact, after his prison term Porter almost never identified himself in print by his real name, even in private correspondence to close friends. To editors, he was simply O. Henry (or occasionally Olivier Henry). When writing to friends, however, he would routinely sign his letters with one of a wide range of deliberately nonsensical pseudonyms, such as "Horatio Swampwater".
A Brief Stay At The Top
Porter married again in 1907 to his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Lindsey Coleman. However, despite the success of his short stories being published in magazines and collections (or perhaps because of the attendant pressure success brought), Porter became an alcoholic. Sarah left him in 1909, and he died in 1910 of cirrhosis of the liver. After funeral services in New York City, he was buried in Asheville, North Carolina. His daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, died in 1927 and was buried with her father.
Attempts were made to secure a presidential pardon for Porter during the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. However, each attempt was met with the assertion that the Justice Department did not recommend pardons after death. This policy was clearly altered during the administration of Bill Clinton (who pardoned Henry Flipper), so the question of a pardon for O. Henry may yet again see the light of day.
Stories
O. Henry stories are famous for their surprise endings. He was called the American Guy De Maupassant. Both authors wrote twist endings, but O. Henry stories were much more playful and optimistic.
Most of O.Henry's stories are set in his own time, the early years of the 20th century. Many take place in New York City, and deal for the most part with ordinary people: clerks, policemen, waitresses. His stories are also well known for witty narration.
The Four Million (a collection of stories) opens with a reference to Ward McAllister's "assertion that there were only 'Four Hundred' people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen—the census taker—and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the 'Four Million'". To O. Henry, everyone in New York counted. He had an obvious affection for the city, which he called Baghdad on the Subway, and many of his stories are set there—but others are set in small towns and in other cities.
His famous story A Municipal Report opens by quoting Frank Norris: "Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are 'story cities' — New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco." Thumbing his nose at Norris, O. Henry sets the story in Nashville.
Fundamentally a product of his time, O. Henry's work provides one of the best English examples of catching the entire flavor of an age. Whether roaming the cattle-lands of Texas, exploring the art of the "gentle grifter", or investigating the tensions of class and wealth in turn of the century New York, O. Henry had an inimitable hand for isolating some element of society and describing it with an incredible economy and grace of language. Some of his best and least-known work resides in the collection "Cabbages and Kings", a series of stories which each explore some individual aspect of life in a paralytically sleepy South American town while each advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another in a complex structure which slowly explicates its own background even as it painstakingly erects a town which is one of the most detailed literary creations of the period.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. O. Henry is so famous for his unexpected plot twists that this warning is especially important.
A famous story of his, "The Gift of the Magi", concerns a young couple who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim's watch; unbeknownst to Della, Jim sells his most valuable possession, his watch, to buy jeweled combs for Della's hair. The essential premise of this story has been copied, re-worked, parodied, and otherwise re-told countless times in the century since it was written.
The Ransom of Red Chief concerns two men who kidnap a boy of ten. The boy turns out to be so bratty and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy's father two hundred and fifty dollars to take him back.
The Cop and the Anthem concerns a New York City hobo named Soapy, who sets out to get arrested so he can spend the cold winter as a guest of the city jail. Despite efforts at petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and "mashing", Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Disconsolate, he pauses in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life - whereupon he is promptly arrested for loitering.
In A Retrieved Reformation, safecracker Jimmy Valntine gets a job in a small town bank to case it for a robbery. Unexpectedly, he falls in love with the banker's daughter, and decides to go straight. Just as he's about to leave to deliver his specialized tools to an old associate, a lawman who recognizes him arrives at the bank, and a child locks herself in the airtight vault. Knowing it will seal his fate, Valentine cracks open the safe to rescue the child - and the lawman lets him go.
[edit] Cultural relations
O. Henry once said: "There are stories in everything. I've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts, and newspaper stands." [citation needed]
The O. Henry Awards are yearly prizes given to outstanding short stories.
The O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships are held in May of each year in Austin, Texas, hosted by the city's O. Henry Museum.
O. Henry is a household name in Russia, as his books enjoyed excellent translations and some of his stories were made into popular movies, the best known being, probably, "The Ransom of Red Chief". The phrase "Bolivar cannot carry double" from "The Roads We Take" has become a Russian proverbs, whose origin many Russians do not even recognize.
O. Henry's first wife, Athol, was probably the model for Della[1].
In 1952 a film featuring five O. Henry stories was made. The primary one from the critic's acclaim was "The Cop and the Anthem" starring Charles Laughton and Marilyn Monroe. The other stories are "The Clarion Call," "The Last Leaf," "The Ransom of Red Chief," and "The Gift of the Magi."
There is an O. Henry Middle School in Austin.
题3： 谁能提供欧亨利的写作风格?要英文的急用!要的是写作风格![英语科目]
O. Henry is famed for his 'twist' endings, and as such, many of his short stories fall into a formula. That said, it's a pretty good formula, and if more writers that are published could find themselves a formula that works as well it would be alot better world to read in. Yet, even the best of formulae lend themselves to needless repetition and predictability. While there are a handful of tales that are great, most are merely solid, for O. Henry lacks a modern feel to his character development. In one tale he can be as realistic as turn of the Twentieth Century fiction can be and in the next he can give merely slight caricatures and corny sight gags.
Among his greatest tales are some of his most famous, like The Social Triangle which humorously skewers classism by having a down and out protagonist named Ikey Snigglefritz end up the object of affection to a gratuitous, social climber. Here is that tale's classic end:
The big pale-gray auto with its shining metal work looked out of place moving slowly among the push carts and trash-heaps on the lower east side. So did Cortlandt Van Duyckink, with his aristocratic face and white, thin hands, as he steered carefully between the groups of ragged, scurrying youngsters in the streets. And so did Miss Constance Schuyler, with her dim, ascetic beauty, seated at his side.
'Oh, Cortlandt,' she breathed, 'isn't it sad that human beings have to live in such wretchedness and poverty? And you- how noble it is of you to think of them, to give your time and money to improve their condition!'
'It is little,' he said, sadly, 'that I can do. The question is a large one, and belongs to society. But even individual effort is not thrown away. Look, Constance! On this street I have arranged to build soup kitchens, where no one who is hungry will be turned away. And down this other street are the old buildings that I shall cause to be torn down and there erect others in place of those death-traps of fire and disease.'
Down Delancey slowly crept the pale-gray auto. Away from it toddled coveys of wondering, tangle-haired, barefooted, unwashed children. It stopped before a crazy brick structure, foul and awry.
Van Duyckink alighted to examine at a better perspective one of the leaning walls. Down the steps of the building came a young man who seemed to epitomize its degradation, squalor and infelicity- a narrow-chested, pale, unsavory young man, puffing at a cigarette.
Obeying a sudden impulse, Van Duyckink stepped out and warmly grasped the hand of what seemed to him a living rebuke.
'I want to know you people,' he said, sincerely. 'I am going to help you as much as I can. We shall be friends.'
As the auto crept carefully away Cortlandt Van Duyckink felt an unaccustomed glow about his heart. He was near to being a happy man.
He had shaken the hand of Ikey Snigglefritz.
Another excellent story is The Last Leaf, in which a symbolic article of hope becomes another's doom. Best-Seller comments on the then gloomy state of publishing. And The Gift Of The Magi, his most famous tale, set at Christmas, is as good as it's made out to be, recounts a poor young couple who give up their own prized possessions so the other will get their heart's desire, only to have each gift, intended to complement the other's treasure, be the thing the other relinquishes. And other classics like Brickdust Row- a social commentary, and The Furnished Room- a tale of suicide, are as good as billed.
However, this book would have been better were it halved to twenty-one tales. There is an essence to O. Henry tales that are too plot-driven. The characters are mere accoutrements to tell a tale, rather than having the appearance of the tale willing to serve them. The best writers make a reader feel like we're merely glimpsing in on the private lives or thoughts of a character, not having a stage play put on for us. Many of O. Henry's lesser tales, the bulk of the book, read like mini Our Towns. That is not to deny the humor, nor the inventiveness of the stories, but, especially read one after another,and after the first four or five tales, a good reader can see the plot's machinations and twists from a mile away. This is why even his best stories do not have the intellectual and artistic heft of truly great short story writers like a Raymond Carver or Russell Banks. Yet, that very obviousness is not always a disadvantage, as any Vaudeville comedian could tell you. Still, a book with half as many tales would be twice as enjoyable, if many of the lesser tales were pruned, especially those set outside of New York. William Sydney Porter, O. Henry's real life persona, just did not have a feel for the non-urban, and his formulae, honed on city hustlers, does not work on amigos nor cowpokes. What would have been interesting was if O. Henry had NOT done a twist ending on every tale, and played into that assumption of a twist ending, then twist the tale with a no twist, or an off-twist. Irony loses its edge in the cacophony of its company.
It is believed that Porter, a career hustler, and ex-con, wrote at least 270 stories under his pseudonym, so this represents about one seventh of his output. It is not difficult to say that a Complete O. Henry would bore even his most ardent fans, and the dated nature of some of his stylistic writing and their subject matter will not win over many young readers. Still, there are lively creations, such as the rapscallious Jeff Peters of several stories, including The Ethics Of Pig, collected here. Look at this bit of wordplay: 'Jeff is in the line of unillegal graft. He is not to be dreaded by widows and orphans; he is a reducer of surplusage. His favorite disguise is that of the target-bird at which the spend-thrift or the rockless investor may shy a few inconsequential dollars.' This is an example of excellent lingual skills, that makes even the dullest of his tales worth reading, if not ever reading again. He is also a master of gentle humor, and often shows an insight into the lower classes that far more serious writers utterly missed, in favor of screeding.
As proof, just reread the end of The Gift Of The Magi, and note how wise and calm Jim is portrayed, in contrast to many contemporary depictions of the poor as little more than savages who deserved the poverty they were shunted to:
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
'Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.'
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
'Dell,' said he, 'let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.'
The magi, as you know, were wise men- wonderfully wise men- who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
The last paragraph also details one of O. Henry's strengths, as well- his ability to seamlessly intrude into a tale, rewind it, or even restart it, as in Springtime A La Carte. His tales are always primally plot driven, as are Guy de Maupassant's, but that does not mean he didn't occasionally limn great characters- they're just few and far between. Good, bad, or in between, O. Henry is an American original- just make sure you take him in lite doses.
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题4： 急求欧亨利的英文生平简介急![英语科目]
O.Henry (1862-1910) was a prolific American short-story writer,a master of surprise endings,who wrote about the life of ordinary people in New York City.A twist of plot,which turns on an ironic or coincidental circumstance,is typical of O.Henry's stories.
William Sydney Porter (O.Henry) was born in Greenboro,North Carolina.His father,Algernon Sidney Porter,was a physician.When William was three,his mother died,and he was raised by his paternal grandmother and aunt.William was an avid reader,but at the age of fifteen he left school,and then worked in a drug store and on a Texas ranch.He moved to Houston,where he had a number of jobs,including that of bank clerk.After moving to Austin,Texas,in 1882,he married.
In 1884 he started a humorous weekly The Rolling Stone.When the weekly failed,he joined the Houston Post as a reporter and columnist.In 1897 he was convicted of embezzling money,although there has been much debate over his actual guilt.In 1898 he entered a penitentiary at Columbus,Ohio.
While in prison O.Henry started to write short stories to earn money to support his daughter Margaret.His first work,"Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking" (1899),appeared in McClure's Magazine.After doing three years of the five years sentence,Porter emerged from the prison in 1901 and changed his name to O.Henry.
O.Henry moved to New York City in 1902 and from December 1903 to January 1906 he wrote a story a week for the New York World,also publishing in other magazines.Henry's first collection,Cabbages And Kings appeared in 1904.The second,The Four Million,was published two years later and included his well-known stories "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Furnished Room".The Trimmed Lamp (1907) included "The Last Leaf".Henry's best known work is perhaps the much anthologized "The Ransom of Red Chief",included in the collection Whirligigs (1910).The Heart Of The West (1907) presented tales of the Texas range.O.Henry published 10 collections and over 600 short stories during his lifetime.
O.Henry's last years were shadowed by alcoholism,ill health,and financial problems.He married Sara Lindsay Coleman in 1907,but the marriage was not happy,and they separated a year later.O.Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver on June 5,1910,in New York.Three more collections,Sixes And Sevens (1911),Rolling Stones (1912) and Waifs And Strays (1917),appeared posthumously.
题5： 欧亨利短篇小说英文简介.简短最好能点出留白的地方爱的牺牲不用了.越多越好.[英语科目]
麦琪的礼物
A poor husband and wife to each other in time to send holiday gifts and gone to great pains to present the final show no use: to sell a gold watch for his wife bought a comb, a hair cut for her husband bought a watch chain root. Nick was "The Gift of the Magi," the plot is not complicated, the authors used the coincidence of suspense and make the uncomplicated plot is full of changes and attractive: the advent of Christmas, a pair of husband and wife at the expense of the poor own the most valuable The other things to buy a useful gift is no longer a story of suspense set of circumstances and coincidence to the readers to look forward to unexpected and a sense of feeling in order to praise the purity of the heroine's love, reflects the human side of the United States.
O. Henry
Saer Dan said: "What is love, love is boundless tolerance, some things can bring joy. Love is the goodwill of the unconscious, of the total self-forgetting." Novelist O. Henry "The Gift of the Magi "Told the true meaning of love. A couple of small Christmas comes, the two sides are well-prepared not to find a gift for her husband Jim to his wife's hair with a comb, to sell his gold watch, bought a comb, his wife and Germany In order to pull her husband's gold watch to sell their hair, bought a watch chain, when they gift each other, found themselves ready to present the other side is not needed, not a matter of fact, they have been more than a comb and watch chain precious gift - Love.
Some people have said that the true meaning of love is given and not obtained. In the novel, the heroine la sobbed several times, but this is not the aggrieved tears, but tears of confusion, she did not know what to give her husband a Christmas present to send her money is too little less, a total of Only seven angle of 11 cents a piece, which she would like to buy and that's the price of gold watch chain far worse, how to do this Leila her down, crying, she had decided to bring her to work with the Greek Pakistan's jewelry looks beautiful hair sold only able to buy a watch chain that is also why her husband Jim in order to buy a la comb, and that piece of King Solomon is jealous enough to blowing a beard stare of a gold watch sold Before they buy a set of combs. Some people may say: "What a pity ah!" But more people in envy: "good people! More than happy!"
Wa Xifu "love" in the show such a point of view: Love is the highest state of each other's well-being for their own well-being.
"Jim and truly la this point, this is a comb la favorite for a long time but should not have to drive things, the watch chain is Jim phase for a long time but dare not wish for anything, in order for them to the other side The desire to achieve, give up their most precious things, this is how the realm of high-ah! That their sincere love is pure merit serious consideration. The world needs love, dedication, we also need to love in the hearts of each should be There is love, not only for themselves, other people, their life should be so.
A spring sowing, harvesting spring, gave us love it! Let love be the main theme of our lives