"《哈克贝利·芬历险记》幽默风格"集中探讨小说中的两种幽默特征,即其边疆幽默风格和对经典莎剧《哈姆雷特》、《罗密欧与朱丽叶》的戏仿。边疆幽默盛行于内战前美国西部开拓时期,即1830年到1860年之间,吐温为其最重要的传承者。在19世纪,莎士比亚戏剧表演风靡全美,堪称雅俗共赏,因此有了小说中两个江湖骗子用莎剧表演忽悠小镇居民钱财的荒诞故事。吐温名著之所以至今仍然颠倒众生,皆因其幽默蕴含明确道德指向。

“Features of Humor in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” concentrates on the two primary features of humor in the novel, that is, features of frontier humor and the parody of themes and characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. Frontier humor was typical of antebellum US from 1830 to 1860, Twain being its primary heir. Shakespeare had been highly popular all across the States in the 19th-century, which explains why the two con men in the novel con inno-cent audiences with performances of Hamlet. The fact that his humor is a moral one accounts for Twain’s undying popularity all across the world.