英美文学史名词解释
4. Aestheticism// the Aesthetic Movement // the fin de siècle aestheticism: it was a
European phenomenon during the latter 19th century that had its chief
headquarters in France. In opposition to the dominance of scientific
thinking and widespread indifference of the middle-class society to art, the
advocates of the movement developed the view that a work of art is the
supreme value because it is self-sufficient and has no use or moral aim
outside its own being. The end of a work of art is simply to exist in its
formal perfection. A rallying cry of Aestheticism is “art for art’s sake”
The views later were introduced to Victorian England and Algernon
Charles Swinburne, Oscar Wilde became its major representatives. (唯美
主义运动, 19世纪末的唯美主义运动)
6. Metaphysical poetry: it refers to the poetry written by a group of 17th century poets
represented by John Donne, Andrew Marvell and George Herbert etc.
They employ paradox, pun and startling parallels in simile and metaphor to
write poetry with the basic features of “wit”or “conceit”. A subtle and
often deliberately outrageous logic is involved to render the form of a
heated argument or a meditative process throughout the poem.
Metaphysical poetry is sharply opposed to the Elizabethan poetry tradition
and has been drastically elevated to a high hierarchy of English poetry
after World War I. （玄学派诗歌）
7. Gothic novel: it is a type of prose fiction with the medieval setting in its barbaric and
supernatural aspects. The term is now generally applied to literature
dealing with the strange, mysterious and supernatural designed to invoke
suspense and terror in the reader. Gothic novel invariably exploits ghosts
and monsters and settings such as castles, dungeons, and graveyards,
which impart a suitably sinister and terrifying atmosphere. （哥特式小说）8. English Romanticism: it is a literary poetic movement starting from the publication
of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 through the first three decades of the
nineteenth century. It favors innovation over traditionalism in the
materials, forms and style of literature, emphasizing poet’s own
spontaneous feelings as the inherent organic laws of poetry. Also, the
external nature---the landscape, together with its flora and fauna,
becomes a persistent subject of romantic poetry. The major poets in
this movement include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and
Keats. （英国浪漫主义诗歌运动）
9. Modernism: the term is widely used to identify the distinctive features in the
subjects, forms, concepts and styles of literature and other arts in the
early decades of 20th century, especially after World War I. Under the
influence of irrational philosophy, modernists break up the narrative
continuity and cast away almost all the traditional elements in literature
like story, plot and character. They shift the narrative focus from the
realists’concern with the external material world to the inner-mind
activities of the characters by the use of stream of consciousness and
other innovative modes of narration. The monuments of modernist
innovation include James Joyce’s Ulysses, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land,
and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. （现代主义）
14. Negative Capability：It is the ability to perceive and to think more than any
presupposition of human nature allows.It describes the capacity of
human beings to reject the totalizing constraints of a closed context,
and to both experience phenomenon free from any epistemological
bounds as well as to assert their own will and individuality upo n their
activity. The term was first used by John Keats to critique those who
sought to categorize all experience and phenomena and turn them into
a theory of knowledge. （济慈的消极感受能力，也可译为延疑力）
17. Renaissance: the term, meaning “rebirth”, is commonly applied to the movement
that marks the transition from the medieval to the modern world in
Western Europe from 14th century to early 17th centuries. The people
of the time turned to the treasures of classical writers and culture for
inspiration. As a cultural movement, Renaissance encompassed a
flowering of literature, science, art, religion, and politics, and a
resurgence of learning based on classical sources, the development of
linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread educational
reform. Although the Renaissance saw revolutions in many intellectual
pursuits, as well as social and political upheaval, it is perhaps best
known for its artistic developments and the contributions of such
polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and William
Shakespeare. （文艺复兴）
18. Sonnet: it is a lyric poem of 14 lines with a formal rhyme scheme, expressing
different aspects of a single thought, mood, or feeling, sometimes
resolved or summed up in the last lines of the poem. The two main
forms of the sonnet are the Petrarchan, or Italian, and the English, or
Shakespearean. （十四行诗）
19. Dramatic Monologue：a poem delivered in a dramatic manner by a single persona
speaker who is not identified with the poet usually to achieve an ironic
effect.
20. Irony: The use of words to express something other than or opposite of the
literary meaning, so that a humorous or sardonic literary style or form
is achieved.
Authors and their Works
2. William Shakespeare: Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1 and Sonnet 18
5. John Milton: Paradise Lost (Book 1, Lines 111-179)
7. Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (Chapter VII)
12. William Wordsworth: The Daffodils (I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud)
15. Percy Bysshe Shelley: Ode to the West Wind
16. John Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn
18. Robert Browning: My Last Duchess
19. Matthew Arnold: Dover Beach
23. Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
24. Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D’ Urbervilles
26. James Joyce: Araby
28. D. H. Lawrence: The Rocking Horse Winner
英美文学名词解释(1)
Epic: A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecti ng the values of the society from which it originated. The style of epic is grand宏伟的 and elevated高尚的. John Milton wrote three great epics:Paradise Lost,Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. Sonnet(十四行诗 A sonnet is a lyric consisting of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter restricted to a definition rhyme scheme Renaissance the activity, spirit, or time of the great revival复活 of art, literature, and learning in Europe beginning in the 14th century and extending to the 17th century, marking the transition过渡from the medieval to the modern world.the essence of the Renaissance is Humanism The Renaissance Period A period of drama and poetry. The Elizabethan drama is the real mainstream of the English Renaissance. Humanism人文主义 Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. 2>it emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the impo rtance of the present life.Humanists voiced their belie fs that man was the center of the universe and man did not
美国文学史复习提纲 名词解释
I. Explain the following literary terms(名词解释). 1. Romanticism The most profound and comprehensive idea of romanticism is the vision of a greater personal freedom for the individual. Appeals to imagination; Stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, gen iality. Subjectivity: in form and meaning. 2 American transcendentalism American transcendentalism was an important movement in philosophy and literature that flourished during the early to middle years of the nineteenth century (about 1836-1860). For the transcendentalists, the soul of each individual is identical with the soul of the world and contains what the world contains. 3 Realism: ―nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.‖ the Civil war a. verisimilitude of details derived from observation b. representative in plot, setting and character c. an objective rather than an idealized view of human experience or（American Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.） 4. Modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. The general term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States starting at the turn of the 20th century with its core period between World War I and World War II and continuing into the 21st century. 5、American Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them. They were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purity their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace form God. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind. American Puritanism also had a enduring influence on American literature. 6、Transcendentalism: In New England, an intellectual movement known as transcendentalism developed as an American version of Romanticism. The movement began among an influential set of authors based in Concord, Massachusetts and was led by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Like Romanticism, transcendentalism rejected both 18th century rationalism and established religion, which for the transcendentalists meant the Puritan tradition in particular. The transcendentalists celebrated the power of the human imagination to commune with the universe and transcend the limitations of the material world. They found their chief source of inspiration in nature. Emerson’s essay Nature was the major document of the transcendental school and stated the ideas that were to remain central to it. 7、Free verse: free verse is the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without attention to conventio nal rules of meter. Free verse was first written and labeled by a group of French poets of the late 19th century. Their purpose was to deliver poetry from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to recreate the free rhythms of natural speech. Walt Whitman was the precursor who wrote lines of varying length and cadence, usually not rhymed. The emotional content or meaning of the work was expressed through its rhythm. Free verse has been characteristic of the work of many modern American poets, including Ezra Pound and Carl Sandburg. 8、Naturalism: A more deliberate kind of realism in novels, stories and plays, usually involving a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment. Naturalism was a new and harsher realism. It
(完整word版)吴伟仁--英国文学史及选读--名词解释
①Beowulf: The national heroic epic of the English people. It has over 3,000 lines. It describes the battles between the two monsters and Beowulf, who won the battle finally and dead for the fatal wound. The poem ends with the funeral of the hero. The most striking feature in its poetical form is the use if alliteration. Other features of it are the use of metaphors(暗喻) and of understatements(含蓄). ②Alliteration: In alliterative verse, certain accented(重音) words in a line begin with the same consonant sound(辅音). There are generally 4accents in a line, 3 of which show alliteration, as can be seen from the above quotation. ③Romance: The most prevailing(流行的) kind of literature in feudal England was the Romance. It was a long composition, sometimes in verse(诗篇), sometimes in prose(散文), describing the life and adventures of a noble hero, usually a knight, as riding forth to seek adventures, taking part in tournament(竞赛), or fighting for his lord in battle and the swearing of oaths. ④Epic: An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significantly to a culture or nation. The first epics are known as primacy, or original epics. ⑤Ballad: The most important department of English folk literature is the ballad which is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas(诗节), with the second and fourth lines rhymed. The subjects of ballads are various in kind, as the struggle of young lovers against their feudal-minded families, the conflict between love and wealth, the cruelty of jealousy, the criticism of the civil war, and the matters and class struggle. The paramount(卓越的) important ballad is Robin Hood(《绿林好汉》). ⑥Geoffrey Chaucer杰弗里.乔叟: He was an English author, poet, philosopher and diplomat. He is the founder of English poetry. He obtained a good knowledge of Latin, French and Italian. His best remembered narrative is the Canterbury Tales(《坎特伯雷故事集》), which the Prologue(序言) supplies a miniature(缩影) of the English society of Chaucer’s time. That is why Chaucer has been called “the founder of English realism”. Chaucer affirms men and women’s right to pursue their happiness on earth and opposes(反对) the dogma of asceticism(禁欲主义) preached(鼓吹) by the church. As a forerunner of humanism, he praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. Chaucer’s contribution to English poetry lies chiefly in the fact that he introduced from France the rhymed stanza of various types, especially the rhymed couplet of 5 accents in iambic(抑扬格) meter(the “heroic couplet”) to English poetry, instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. ⑦【William Langland威廉.朗兰: Piers the Plowman《农夫皮尔斯》】
英美文学名词解释
1. In the medieval period ， it is Chaucer alone who ， for the first time in English literature ， presented to usa comprehensive __picture of the English society of his time and created a whole galery of vivid ___ from all walks of life in his masterpiece “the Canterbury Tales ”。 A. visionary / women B. romantic /men C. realistic / characters D. natural / figures 2. Although ____ was essentially a medieval writer, he bore marks of humanism and anticipated a new era of literature to come. A. William Langland B. John Gower C. Geoffrey Chaucer D. Edmund Spenser 3. Humanism spume from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique authors and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious ，intellectual side ，for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on the conception that man is the ____ of all things . A. measure B. king C. lover D. rule 4. The essence of humanism is to ______. A. restore a medieval reverence for the church B. avoid the circumstances of earthly life C. explore the next world in which men could live after death D. emphasize human qualities 5. Many people today tend to regard the play “ The Merchant of Venice ” as a satire of the hypocrisy of ___ and their false standards of friendship and love ， their cunning ways of pursuing worldliness and their unreasoning prejudice against _________ . A. Christians / Jews B. Jews / Christians C. oppressors / oppressed D. people / Jews 6. In “ Sonnet 18 ”， Shakespeare has a profound meditation on the destructive power of _________ and the eternal __________ brought forth by poetry to the one he loves . A. death/ life B. death/ love C. time / beauty D. hate / love 7.In The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan describes The Vanity Fair in a ______ tone. A. delightful B. satirical C. sentimental D. solemn 8. The religious reformation in the early 16th-century England was a reflection of the class struggles waged by the _____. A. rising bourgeoisie against the feudal class and its ideology B. working class against the corruption of the bourgeoisie C. landlord class against the rising bourgeoisie and its ideology D. feudal class against the corruption of the Catholic Church 9. The ______ was a progressive intellectual movement throughout western Europe in the 18th century . A. Renaissance B. Enlightenmrent C. Religious Reformation D. Chartist Movement 10.The 18th century witnessed a new literary form -the modern English novel, which, contrary to the medieval romance, gives a ______ presentation of life of the common English people. A. romantic B. idealistic C. prophetic D. realistic 1. The title of the novel “ A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ” written by James Joyce suggests a character study with strong _________ elements .
美国文学史名词解释
1、the Lost Generation In general, the post-World War I generation, but specifically a group of U.S. writers who came of age during the war and established their literary reputations in the 1920s. The term stems from a remark made by Gertrude Stein to Ernest Hemingway, “You are all a lost generation.” Hemingway used it as an epigraph to The Sun Also Rises (1926). The generation was “lost” in the sense that its inherited values were no longer relevant in the postwar world and because of its spiritual alienation from a U.S. that, b asking under President Harding's “back to normalcy” policy, seemed to its members to be hopelessly provincial, materialistic, and emotionally barren. The term embraces Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, e.e. cummings and many other writers who made Paris the centre of their literary activities in the '20s. They were never a literary school. In the 1930s, as these writers turned in different directions, their works lost the distinctive stamp of the postwar period. The last representative works of the era were Fitzgerald's Tender Lost generation The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe the post-war I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the three best-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and John dos Passos. Lost generation The Lost Generation is a group of expatriate American writers residing primarily in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. The group was given its name by the American writer Gertrude Stein, who used “a lost generation” to refer to expatriate Americans bitter about their World War I experiences and disillusioned with American society. Hemingway later used the phrase as an epigraph for his novel The Sun Also Rises. It consisted of many influential American writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams and Archibald MacLeish. 2、Iceberg Theory It is a term used to describe the writing style of American writer Ernest Hemingway. The meaning of a piece is not immediately evident, because the crux of the story lies below the surface, just as most of the mass of a real iceberg similarly lies beneath the surface. Iceberg Theory Ernest Hemingway’s “iceberg theory” sugge sts that the writer include in the text only a small portion of what he knows, leaving about ninety percent of the content a mystery that grows beneath the surface of the writing. If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of
美国文学史及选读复习重点
Captain John Smith (first American writer). Anne Bradstreet；The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America （colonists living） Edward Taylor(the best puritan poet) John Cotton ”the Patriarch of New England” teacher spiritual leader Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography Poor Richard’s Almanack Thomas Jefferson： Political Career Thoughts The Declaration of Independence we hold truth to be self-evidence Philip Freneau“Father of American Poetry” The Wild Honey Suckle American Romanticism optimism and hope Nationalism Washington Irving“Father of American Literature short story”The first “Pure Writer” A History of New York The Sketch Book marked the beginning of American Romanticism! “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”Rip Van Winkle James Fenimore Cooper Father of American sea and frontier novels Leather stocking Tales The Last of the Mohicans The Pioneers The Prairie The Pathfinder The Deerslayer Edgar Allan Poe father of detective story and horror fiction Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque “MS. Found in a Bottle” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” “The Fall of the House of Usher”“The Masque of the Red Death”“The
美国文学简史名词解释定义
American Puritanism: Puritanism was a religious reform movement that arose within the Church of England in the late sixteenth century. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and forth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World--- a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England, Puritanism, however,was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincident with the founding of New England; it was also a way of being in the world---a style of response to lived experience---that has reverberated through American life ever since. Doctrinally, Puritans adhered to the Five Points of Calvinism as codified at the Synod of Dort in 1619:(1) unconditional election ( the idea that God had decreed who was damned and who was saved from before the beginning of the world); (2) limited atonement ( the idea that Christ died for the elect only); (3) total depravity (humanity's utter corruption since the Fall); (4) irresistible grace (regeneration as entirely a work of God, which cannot be resisted and to which the sinner contributes nothing); and (5) the perseverance of the saints (the elect, despite their backsliding and faintness of heart , cannot fall away from grace). American Dream: The American Dream is the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth as a measure of success and\ or happiness. Gothic tradition: Gothic novel or Gothic romance is a story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery. In an extended sense, many novels that do not have a medievalized setting, but which share a comparably sinister, grotesque, or chaustrophobic atmosphere have been classed as Gothic. It contributed to the new emotional climate of Romanticism. Historical novel: a novel in which the action takes place during a specific historical period well before the time of writing ( often one or two generations before, sometimes several centuries), and in which some attempt is made to depict accurately the customs and mentality of the period. The central character---real or imagined---is usually subject to divided loyalties within a larger historic conflict of which readers know the outcome. The pioneers of this genre were Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper American Romanticism:Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. The romantic period in American literature stretched from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil
英美文学四大思潮名词解释(全英)
Romanticism began in the mid-18th century and reached its height in the 19th century.It was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe.The ideologies and events of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution laid the background for Romanticism. The Enlightenment also had influence on Romanticism .It was a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe.The Romantic literature of the nineteenth century concentrating on emotion, nature, and the expression of "nothing".famous romanticism writers are such as william Wordsworth:lyrical ballods、william whitman ：leaves of grass Realism beginning with mid nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-19th- and early-20th-century .It was a reaction againest romanticism and paved the way to modernism.the realism is product of europe capitalist system?s establishment and development.the philosophy and science of europe in 19th century has promated its production authors trend to depictions of contemporary life and society as it was, or is. In the spirit of general "realism" ,realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized