The Image Of Europe In Mark Twain’s Travelogue

In Europe, Mark Twain enjoyed the view of natural scenery, which helped him find peace of mind; He was dazzled by the gaiety and romantic in metropolis, therefore, Europe was the paradise at his first sight. However, Mark Twain was deeply depressed when he witnessed of more commercial ambience, ugliness, corruption and degenerate. In artistic palace, Mark Twain criticized for the arts, disregarding for other people’s admiration. In summary, the image of Europe has different aspects.The image of Europe contains the aesthetic pursuit of Mark Twain, naturally, we can grasp his poetic pursuit through analyzing aesthetic ingredients of European image. Humor is a tag in Mark Twain’s works, which is also reflected in his travelogue in Europe. Excellent travelogue must be pleasing, giving a person with beautiful enjoyment, so humor becomes the itinerary is quite bright and outstanding characteristics. In art galleries, Mark Twain asked for many questions with naivety eyes. With his criticism, Mark Twain implied his idea of art, which there is no internal standard in arts world, even no difference of elegance or vulgarity. By interpretation of romantic tales, Mark Twain provided consideration the model of love story, the way of literary criticism, the definition of romantic and other issues.To get the closer investigation, we can make out two interesting phenomena, one hand, the European image is full of contradictions, not only reflected in the two general image, where are "Promised Land" and "never without a dream", but also reflected in every aspect of his description to Europe. This paradox, however, is not nonsense, but reflects the American mentality of Europe, which included both inheritance and self-identity. Mark Twain in shaping the exotic image when the selection mode. On the other hand, the image of Europe shaped has a certain degree of misreading, but this is not wrong interpretation, but limited by the author’s existing horizon.The contradiction and misreading image convey information is that Mark Twain, as the narrator, played a leading role as description the Europe, therefore, we had to return to the cultural level. Although this paper is to research on Mark Twain’s European image, the image of America is looming in the process of induction and analysis:a sense of identity, national character, development of the bourgeois.