英美文学术语整理版(考试答题用)

Humanism As the essence of the Renaissance, humanism emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life. Humanists voiced their beliefs that man was the center of the universe and man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of the present life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.

Renaissance The Renaissance marks the transition from the medieval to the modern world. The essence of it is Humanism. It indicates a revival of classical arts and sciences after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism. Man became the center of the world instead of God. The Renaissance Movement is a great revolution carried out in the 14c to the mid-17c Europe. It brought human wisdom and capacity into full play.

Enlightenment The 18c England is known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. The purpose was to enlighten the world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. It celebrated reason, equality, science and human beings’ ability to perfect themselves and their society. It advocated universal education. Representatives are Alexander pope, Jonathan Swift, etc.

Classicism A movement in tendency or art, literature, or music that reflects the principles manifested in the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Classicism emphasizes the traditional and the universal, and places value on reason, clarity, balance and order.

Romanticism A movement that flourished in literature, philosophy, music, and art in western culture during most of the 19c. It emphasizes the individual, the irrational, the imaginative, the spontaneous and the emotional. The representatives include Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, etc.

Realism the attempt in literature and art to represent life as it is, without sentimentalizing or idealizing it. Realistic writing often depicts the everyday life and speech of ordinary people.

Neoclassicism A thought of movement in the 17c characterized by the revival of Greek and Roman style, order, balance and harmony in literature.

Critical Realism It flourished in the 19c. The realists first and foremost set themselves the task of criticizing capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint and delineated the crying contradictions of bourgeois reality. But they did not find a way to eradicate social evils.

Epic An epic is a long oral narrative poem that operates on a grand scale and deals with legendary or historical events of national or universal significance. It reflects the values of the society from which it originated.

Ballad: A story told in verse and usually meant to be sung. Folk ballads have no known authors. They were transmitted orally and were not set down in writing until centuries after they were first sung. The subject matter of folk ballads stems from the everyday life of the common people. Devices commonly used in ballads are the refrain, incremental repetition, and code language.

Essay: A piece of prose writing, usually short, that deals with a subject in a limited way and expresses a particular point or view. An informal essay is usually brief, it uses a conversational style and a personal or humorous tone. By contrast, a formal essay is tightly organized, dignified in style, and serious in tone. Allegory a tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. An allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.

Soliloquy In drama, it is an extended speech delivered by a character alone on the stage. The character reveals his or her inner thoughts and feelings directly to the audience, as if thinking aloud.

Tragedy a literary work in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous end. It depicts the actions of a central character who is usually dignified or heroic.

Comedy A literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable armistice between the protagonist and the society.

Drama it employs plot, uses characters and develops a theme like fiction; it’s similar to poetry in its extensive use of resources of language, however, most plays are written to be performed on a stage rather than to be read in books.

Sonnet a lyric poem comprising 14 rhyming lines of equal length, usually written in iambic pentameters.

A sonnet generally expresses a single theme or idea.

Iambic pentameter:A poetic line consisting of five verse feet, with each foot an iamb—that is, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. It is the most common verse line in English poetry. Poetry: the literature written in verse form. Poetry is characterized by a musical effect created by rhythm and sounds, a precise and fresh imagery, and multiple levels of interpretation suggested by the connotation of the closer words and by allusions.

Rhyme It is the repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem. It contributes to the music of poetry.

Stanza It is a structural division of a poem, consisting of a series of verse lines which usually comprise a recurring pattern of meter and rhyme.

Denotation The literal or “dictionary” meaning of a word.

Connotation All the emotions and associations that a word or phrase may arouse.

Dramatic monologue a kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in the poem. The occasion is usually a crucial one in the

speaker’s personality as well as the incident that is the subject of the poem.

Rhythm it is one of the three basic elements of traditional poetry. It is the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables into a pattern. Rhythm often gives a poem a distinct musical

quality. Poets often use rhythm to echo meanings.

Lyric usually a short poem consisting of the utterance by a single speaker, who expresses a state of mind, thoughts or feelings.

Meter a generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

Image an image is a word or a sequence of words which refers to any sensory experiences. It may be initially thought of as a verbal picture, an object seen, or the concrete representation of

the outward from a person. It can also be what is heard or felt.

Allusion: A reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects the reader to recognize and respond to. An allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion. Assonance It is the repetition of the same vowel sound within a line in poetry. It is often employed to create music or emphasize certain sounds.

Foot it is a rhythmic unit, a specific combination of stressed and unstressed syllables

Consonance: the repetition of two or more consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words.

Simile as a figure of speech, it is a direct comparison of two different things, usually using connectives like “as”, “like”, etc.

Metaphor A figure of speech indirectly comparing two different things, usually by equating the two or by replacing one with the other.

Conceit: A kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly different things. A conceit may be a brief metaphor, but it usually provides the framework for an entire poem. An especially unusual and intellectual kind of conceit is the metaphysical conceit.

Personification The figure of speech which assigns human qualities to inanimate objects or abstractions.

Metonymy a figure of speech in which something very closely associated with a thing is used to stand for or suggest the thing itself.

Synecdoche A figure of speech in which a part of an object is used to represent the whole object or idea, vice versa.

Novel A book-length fictional prose narrative, having many characters and often a complex plot.

Theme it is the central or dominating idea in a literary work around which all the other elements of a story are organized.

Plot it is the sequence of events or actions in a short story, novel, play or narrative poem.

Style it refers to the distinctive manner in which a writer arranges words to achieve particular effects.

Narration it is a part of conversation and writing, it’s the major technique used in expository writing, such as autobiography. Narration gives an exact picture of things as they occur.

Description* it is through the use of specific details and concrete language that abstract ideas and half-formed thoughts are made vividly real. We have objective description and subjective description. Suspense the quality of a story, novel or drama that makes the reader or audience uncertain or tense about the outcome of events.

Tone the attitude a writer takes toward his/her subject, characters, or audience. The tone of a speech or a piece of writing can be formed or intimate; outspoken orreticent; abstruse or simple;

solemn or playful; angry or lovely; serious or ironic.

Action* the main events in a novel.

Climax it refers to the point of the greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a story’s turning point. It precipitates the outcome of conflict.

Denouement the outcome of a plot. It is the part of a play, short story, novel or narrative poem in which conflicts are resolved and secrets are explained.

Conflict a struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story, novel, play or narrative poem.

Usually the events of the story are all related to the conflict, and the conflict is resolved

in some way by the story’s end.

Setting the time and space in which the events in a short story, novel play or narrative poem occur. It gives us information, vital to plot and theme.

Character it applies to any individual in a dramatic or narrative work. A character is usually but not always

a human being. However, even it is an animal or an inanimate object, it must have

some human qualities. Two types of it are flat character and round character.

Round character Round characters are complex multidimensional characters with the capacity to grow and change. Major characters are usually round characters.

Characterization it is the means by which an author presents and reveals characters, usually by telling or showing.

Prototype the first form of something from which all later forms develop.

Exposition it is the beginning section of a fiction in which the author provides the necessary background information of the story, describes the setting, and introduces characters.

Flashback a scene in a short story, novel, play or narrative poem that interrupts the action to show an event that happened earlier but relevant to the present.

Irony A contrast or discrepancy between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. Three kinds of irony are verbal irony, dramatic irony, and irony of circumstance or situation.

Satire a kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weaknesses and wrongdoings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general. The aim is to set a moral

standard for society.

Parody the humorous imitation of a work of literature, art or music. It often achieves its humorous effect through the use of exaggeration or mockery. In literature, parody can be made of a plot,

a character, a writing style, a sentiment or a theme.