英美文学术语(英文版)_literary_terms
英美文学专有名词术语解释
Literary Terms（文学术语解释）*Legend（传说）: A song or narrative handed down from the past, legend differs from myths on the basis of the elements of historical truth they contain.*Epic（史诗）: 1)Epic, in poetry, refers to a long work dealing with the actions of gods and heroes. 2)Beowulf is the greatest national epic of the Anglo-Saxons. John Milton wrote three great epics: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes.*Romance（罗曼史/骑士文学）: 1)Romance is a popular literary form in the medieval England. 2)It sings knightly adventures or other heroic deeds. 3)Chivalry(such as bravery, honor, generosity, loyalty and kindness to the weak and poor) is the spirit of romance. *Ballad（民谣）: 1)Ballad is a story in poetic form to be sung or recited. 2)Ballads were passed down from generation to generation. 3)Robin Hood is a famous ballad singing the goods of Robin Hood. Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a 19th century English ballad.*The Heroic Couplet（英雄对偶句）:1)It means a pair of lines of a type once common in English poetry, in other words, it means iambic pentameter rhymed in two lines. 2)The rhyme is masculine. 3)Use of the heroic couplet was first pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer.*Humanism（人文主义）:1)Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life. 2)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 prefect himself and to perform wonders.*Renaissance（文艺复兴）:1)It refers to the transitional period from the medieval to the modern world. It first started in Italy in the 14th century. 2)The Renaissance means rebirth or revival. 3)It was stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek classics, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation and the economic expansion. 4)Humanism is the essence of Renaissance. 5)The English Renaissance didn’t begin until the reign of Henry Ⅷ. It was reg arded as England’s Golden Age, especially in literature. 6)The real mainstream of the English Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama. 7)This period produced such literary giants as Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe, Bacon, Donne and Milton, etc.*University Wits（大学才子）: 1)It refers to a group of scholars during the Elizabethan age who graduate from either Oxford or Cambridge. They came to London with the ambition to become professional writers. Some of them later become famous poets and playwrights. 2)Thomas Greene, John Lily and Christopher Marlowe were among them. 3)They paved the way, to some degree, for the coming of Shakespeare.*Blank verse（无韵体）:1)It is verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. 2)It is the verse form used in some of the greatest English poetry, including that of William Shakespeare and John Milton.*Spenserian Stanza（斯宾塞诗节）:1)It is the creation of Edmund Spenser. 2)It refers to a stanza of nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter（六音步）,r hyming ababbcbcc. 3)Spenser’s The Faerie Queene was written in this kind of stanza.*Sonnet(十四行诗)1)It is the one of the most conventional and influential forms of poetry in English.2)A sonnet is a lyric consisting of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme.3)Shakespeare’s sonnets are well-known. *Soliloquy(独白)1)Soliloquy, in drama, means a moment when a character is alone and speaks his or her thoughts aloud. 2)In the line “To be, or not to be, that is the question”, which begins the famous soliloquy from Act3, Scene1 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In this soliloquy Hamlet questions whether or not life is worth living and speaks of the reasons why he does not end his life.*Metaphysical Poets（玄学派诗人）：They refer to a group of religious poets in the first half of the 17th century whose works were characterized by their wit, imaginative picturing, compressions, often cryptic expression, play of paradoxes and juxtapositions of metaphor.*Enlightenment Movement(启蒙运动)1)It was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept through Western Europe in the 18th century.2)The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance from 14th century to the mid-17th century.3)Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas.4)It celebrated reason or nationality, equality and science. It advocated universal education. Literature at the time became a very popular means of public education.5)Famous among the great enlighteners in England were those great writers like John Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Sheridan, etc.Neoclassicism(新古典主义)1)In the field of literature, the 18th century Enlightenment Movement brought about a revival of interest in the old classical works. This tendency is known as neoclassicism.2)The neoclassicists hold that forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers such as Homer and Virgil and those of the contemporary French ones.3)They believed that the artistic ideas should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity*Sentimentalism(感伤主义文学)1)It is a pejorative term to describe false or superficial emotion, assumed feeling, self-regarding postures of grief and pain.2)In literature it denotes overmuch use of pathetic effects and attempts to arouse feeling by pathetic indulgence.3)The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith is a case in point.*The Graveyard School(墓地派诗歌)1)It refers to a school of poets of the 18th century whose poems are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentation or meditation on life, past and present, with death and graveyard as theams.2)Thomas Gray is considered to be the leading figure of this school and his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is its most representative work.*Epistolary novel(书信体小说)1)It consists of the letters the characters write to each other. The usual form is the letter, but diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used.2)The epistolary novel’s reliance on subjective poi nts of view makes it the forerunner of the modern psychological novel.3)Samuel Richardson’s Pamela is typical of this kind.*Gothic Romance(哥特传奇)1)A type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th century in England.2)Gothic romances are mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and they are usually against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles.*Picaresque novel(流浪汉小说)1)It is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society. 2)As indicated by its name, this style of novel originated in Spain, flourished in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, and continues to influence modern literature.*English Romanticism(英国浪漫主义文学)1)The English Romantic period is an age of poetry. Poets started a rebellion against the neoclassical literature, which was later regarded as the poetic revolution. They saw poetry as a healing energy; they believed that poetry could purify both individual souls and the society.2)The Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798 acts as a manifesto for the English Romanticism.3)The Romantics not only eulogize the faculty of imagination, but also stress the concept of spontaneity and inspiration, regarding them as something crucial for true poetry.4)The natural world comes to the forefront of the poetic imagination. Nature is not only the major source of poetic imagery, but also provides the dominant subject matter.*Ode(颂歌)1)Ode is a dignified and elaborately lyric poem of some length, praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally.2)John Keats wrote great odes. His Ode on a Grecian Urn is a case in point.*Lake Poets(湖畔派诗人)They refer to such romantic poets as William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge and Robert Southey who lived in the Lake District. They came to be known as the Lake School or “Lakers”.*Byronic hero（拜伦式英雄）: It refers to a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. With immense superiority in his passions and powers, this Byronic hero would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt society, and would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles withunconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies.Terza rima(三行体)1)It is an Italian verse that consists of a series of three-lines stanzas in which the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza with the rhyming scheme ab a, bcb, cdc,ded, etc..2)Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” is a case in point*Critical Realism(批判现实主义)1)The Critical Realism of the 19th century flourished in the forties and in the beginning of fifties.2)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.3)Charls Dickens is the most important critical realist.*Psychological novel(心理小说)1)A vague term to describe that kind of fiction which is for the most part concerned with the spiritual, emotional and mental lives of the characters and with the analysis of characters rather than with the plot and the action.2)Thackeray’s charac terization of Rebecca Sharp is very much psychological.*Narration(叙述)1)Like description, narration is a part of conversation and writing. Narration is the major technique used in expository writing, such as autobiography.2)Successful narration must grow out of good observation, to-the-point selection and clear arrangement of details in logical sequence, which is usually chronological.3)Narration gives an exact picture of things as they occur.*Narrator(叙述者)1)It refers to one who narrates, or tells, a story.2)A story may be told by a first-person narrator, someone who is either a major or minor character in the story. Or a story may be told by a third-person narrator, someone who is not in the story at all.3)The word narrator can also refer to a character in a drama who guides the audience through the play, often commenting on the action and sometimes participating in it.*Plot(情节)1)Plot is the first and most obvious quality of a story. Plot is what happens in a story.2)It consists of the phrases of action in a story that are linked together by a chain of casual relationships.Point of view(叙述角度)1)The event of a story may be told as they appear to one or more participants or observers. In first-person narration the point of view is automatically that of the narrator.2)More variation is possible in third-person narration, where the author may choose to limit his or her report to what could have been observed or known by one of the characters at any given point in the action—or may choose to report the observations and thoughts of several characters. The author might choose to intrude his or her own point of view.*Naturalism(自然主义)1)A post Darwinian movement of the late 19th century that tried to apply the laws of scientific determinism to fiction. 2)The naturalist w ent beyond the realist’s insistence on the objective presentation of the details of everyday life to insist that the materials of literature should be arranged to reflect a deterministic universe in which a person is a biological creature controlled by environment and heredity.3)Major writers include Crane, Dreiser in America; Zola in France ; and Hardy and Gissing in England.*The Aesthetic Movement(唯美主义运动)1)It is a loosely defined movement in literature, fine art, the decorative arts and interior design in later nineteenth-century Britain. 2)It belongs to the anti-Victorian reaction and had post-Romantic roots, and as such anticipates modernism. It took place in the late Victorian Period from around 1868 to 1901, and is generally considered to have ended with the trial of Oscar Wilde (which occurred in 1895).3)The aesthetes believed that art did not have any didactic purpose; it need only be beautiful.Dramatic Monologue(戏剧独白)1)In literature, it refers to the occurrence of a single speaker saying something to a silent audience.2)Robert Browning is My Last Duchess is a typical example in which the duke, speaking to a non-responding audience, reveals not only the reasons for his disapproval of the behavior of his former duchess, but some tyrannical and merciless aspects of his own personality as well.。
英语专业英美文学文学词汇大全Literature terms
Literature terms1Epic : a long narrative poem telling about the deedsof a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. Many epics were drawn from an oral tradition and were transmitted by song and recitation before they were written down.（史诗）2Romance:It was a long composition, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero.（传奇文学）3Heroic Couplet: the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter. (英雄双韵体)4Iambic Pentameter: is the most common Englishmeter, in which each foot contains an unaccentedsyllable and an accented syllable. (五音步抑扬格)meter 格律foot音步5ballad:is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas, with the second and fourth lines rhymed.（歌谣）6Sonnet: It is a lyric poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme.（十四行诗）7Blank verse: is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme.（无韵诗）8Soliloquy: an utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to himself/ herself or is disregardful of or oblivious to any hearers present (often used as a device in a drama to disclose a character’s innermost thoughts); 2. theact of talking while or as if alone(独白)9Classicism: Aesthetic attitudes and principles manifested in the art, architecture, and literature of ancient Greece and Rome and characterized by emphasis on form, simplicity, proportion, and restraint. Classicism was popular in Europe in the 18th century.（古典主义）10Neo-classicism: neo-classicism imitated the characteristics of Roman writers, including Horace, Virgil, Cicero, etc., in the days of Augustus. They tried to make English literature conform to rules and principles established by the great Roman and Greek classical writers. In writing plays, they used rhyme and couplet instead of blank verse, observed thetrinity --- the unity of time, place and action.（新古典主义）11An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and otherdocuments are sometimes used.（书信体小说）12Sentimentalism is one of the important trends in English literature of the middle and later decades of the 18th century. It justly criticized the cruelty of the capitalist relations and the gross social injustices brought about by the bourgeoisrevolutions. It embraces a pessimistic outlook and blames reason and the Industrial Revolution, marked by a sincere sympathy for thepoverty-stricken ,expropriated peasants.(感伤主义)Romanticism: Romanticism is a literary trend. It prevails in England during the period 1798-1832. romanticists expressed the ideology and sentiment of those classes and social strata who were discontent with and opposed to the development of capitalism. They split into two groupsbecause of the different attitudes toward the capitalist society.（浪漫主义）Ode is a lyric poem of some length that honors an individual, a thing, a trait dealing with a lofty theme in a dignified manner. The form dates back to classical times and is originally intended to be sung at festivals or in plays.Brief Outline of British Literature：works1. Early and Medieval English Literature1) The Anglo-Saxon Period (449-1066)National epic:The Song of Beowulf2) The Anglo-Norman Period (1066-1350)Arthurian Romance: Sir Gawain andGreen Knight3) Geoffrey Chaucer1340-1400：Messenger of HumanismThe first important realistic writer“Father” of English poetryThe Canterbury Tales the wife of Bath（巴斯夫人）,the Knight（骑士）,the Pardoner（卖赎罪卷者）,the Nun’s Priest（尼姑的教士）,the Prologue（序诗）.The Romaunt of the Rose 《玫瑰传奇》The Book of the Duchess 《悼公爵夫人》Troilus and Criseyde《特罗伊洛斯和克瑞西德》Thomas MaloryMorte d’Arthur (Death of Arthur)《亚瑟之死》William LanglandPiers the Plowman[Boccaccio薄伽丘：Decameron《十日谈》Ovid奥维德:《爱的艺术》《变形记》]2. The English Renaissance (16 century)Thomas MoreUtopiaChristopher Marlowe克里斯托弗·马洛First person used blank verseDeath of Arthur 《亚瑟之死》Tamburlaine the Great «帖木儿大帝»The Jew of Malta «马尔他岛的犹太人»The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus«浮士德博士的悲剧»Hero and Leander《海洛和利安得》The Passionate Shepherd to His Love《牧羊人的恋歌》William Shakespeareone of the founders of realism in world literature as well as in English literatureV enus and Adonis《维纳斯与安东尼斯》The Rape of Lucrece《鲁克里斯受辱记》Four tragedies：Hamlet《哈姆雷特》Othello《奥塞罗》King Lear《李尔王》Macbeth《麦克白》Four comedies：A Midsummer Night’s Dream《仲夏夜之梦》The Merchant of V enice《威尼斯商人》As You Like It《皆大欢喜》Twelfth Night《第十二夜》Ben Jonson本·琼森first poet- laureateafter Shakespeare the most eminent writer for the Elizabethan stagethe greatest dramatist after Shakespearethe founder of the so-called “Comedy of Humors”,Every Man in His Humor《人人高兴》Every Man Out of His Humor《人人扫兴》Volpone 《福尔蓬奈》the Fox《狐狸》The Alchemist《炼金术士》Sir Thomas Wyatt托马斯·怀亚特Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey 亨利·霍华德·萨里伯爵Sir Philip Sidney 西德尼Astrophel and Stella《爱星者和星星》Arcadia《阿卡狄亚》The Defence of Poetry《诗辩》Edmund Spenser埃德蒙·斯宾塞the Poet’s poet , a model of poetical artgreatest non-dramatic poet of his timefirst master of English verseThe Shepherd’s Calendar《牧人月历》Amoretti 《爱情小诗》The Fairy Queen《仙后》Francis Bacon 弗朗西斯·培根The father of experimental philosophyThe most important prose writer of the Elizabethan Agethe first English essayistthe founder of English materialist philosophy.The Advancement of Learning《学术的进展》The Novum Organum (The New Instrument)《新工具》The New Atlantis《新大西岛》The Essays 《散文集》(Of Studies)3. The Period of The English Bourgeois Revolution (17 century)John Milton约翰·弥尔顿the smartest man in Europea master of the blank verseParadise Lost《失乐园》Paradise Regained《复乐园》Samson Agonistes《力士参孙》Lycidas 《利西达斯》Comus《科玛斯》a masque《假面剧》John Bunyan约翰·班扬Pilgrim’s Progress《天路历程》Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinner 《功德无量》The Life and Death of Mr. Badman《恶人先生的生平和死亡》《贝德曼先生的一生》The Holy War《神圣战争》John Donne约翰·邓恩Founder of Metaphysical poetry选学派诗人Songs and Sonnets《歌与短歌》Holy sonnet《圣十四行诗》Divine poem《神圣诗歌》Elegies and Satire《挽歌与讽刺诗》Meditations《冥想》/《沉思》4. The Age of Enlightenment (18 century)Alexander Pope亚历山大·蒲柏Essay on Criticism《论批评》The Rape of the Lock《夺发记》Joseph Addison约瑟夫·艾狄生andRichard Steel理查德·斯蒂尔The Tatler and The SpectatorDaniel Defoe丹尼尔·笛福18世纪启蒙时期现实主义小说的奠基人Robinson CrusoeCaptain Singleton《辛格顿船长》Colonel Jacque《杰克上校》Moll Flanders《茉尔·弗兰德丝》A Journal of the Plague Year《瘟疫记事》Jonathan Swift乔纳森·斯威夫特One of the greatest masters of English prosea master satiristGulliver’s TravelsA Tale of a Tub 《一个木桶的故事》The Battle of Books《书的战争》The Drapier’s Letters《一个麻布商的书信》A Modest Proposal《一个小小的建议》Samuel Richardson 塞谬尔·理查逊Pamela 《帕美勒》Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady《克拉丽莎》The History of Sir Charles Grandison《查尔斯·葛兰底森爵士传》Henry Fielding亨利·菲尔丁最早的现实主义小说理论家现实主义小说奠基人Tom Jones《汤姆˙琼斯》Don Quixote in England《唐吉诃德在英国》Pasqin《巴斯昆》The Historical Register for the Year 1736《一七三六年历史记事》The Tragedy of Tragedies or The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great 《悲剧的悲剧：或伟人汤姆传》Joseph Andrews《约瑟夫˙安德鲁斯的经历》Jonathan Wild the Great《大伟人乔纳森˙魏尔德》Amelia《阿米丽亚》Samuel Johnson塞缪尔·约翰逊As Lexicographer or The Dictionary of the English Language英语词典Oliver Goldsmith戈德史密斯Ano velist and poet belongs to the school of Sentimentalism She Stoops to Conquer《屈伸求爱》The Vicar of Wakefield 《威克菲尔德牧师传》The Traveler and The Deserted VillageThe Citizen of the World《世界公民》Richard Brinsley Sheridan 谢里丹The School for Scandal 《造谣学校》Comedy of Manners风尚喜剧Thomas Gray 格雷-------- sentimentalismOn the Death of a Favorite Cat 《爱猫之死》Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 《墓园挽歌》The Progress of Poetry 《诗的发展》The Correspondence of Thomas Gray《格雷书信集》William Blake威廉布莱克Tiger 《老虎》Songs of Innocence《天真之歌》Songs of Experience《经验之歌》The Marriage of Heaven and Hell《天堂与地狱的婚姻》Robert Burns-罗伯特彭斯--- pre-romanticismthe most famous poets of the peasants in the worldA red red rose《我的爱人像朵红红的玫瑰》5. Romanticism in England (19 century)PoetryWilliam Wordsworth华兹华斯The prelude《序曲》Lyrical Ballads《抒情歌谣集》I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud《我好似一朵流云独自漫步》To the 《咏水仙》S. T. Coleridge柯林律治The Rime of the Ancient Mariner《古舟子咏》《古水手谣》Kubla khan 《忽必烈汗》George Gordon Byron乔治戈登拜伦One of the most excellent representatives of English Romanticismone of the most influential poets of the timeHours of Idleness《闲暇时刻》Child Harold’s Pilgrimage《恰尔德·哈罗德游记》.Don Juan《唐璜》She Walks in BeautyPercy Bysshe Shelley雪莱Prometheus Unbound《解放了的普罗米修斯》Queen Mab 《仙后麦布》Address to the Irish People《告爱尔兰人书》The Revolt of Islam《伊斯兰的反叛》The Masque of Anarchy《暴政的行列》The Cenci《钦契一家》A Defence of Poetry《诗辩》The Necessity of Atheism《无神论的必要性》Ode to the West Wind10. To a Skylark《致云雀》John Keats济慈Lamia《莱米亚》Endymion《恩底弥翁》On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer《初读查普曼译荷马史诗》Isaabella 《伊莎贝拉》The Eve of St. Agnes《圣·爱格尼斯节前夕》Hyperion《赫坡里昂》On a Grecian Urn 《希腊古瓮颂》To Autumn《秋颂》On Melancholy《忧郁颂》To a Nightingale 《夜莺颂》Prose fictionWalter Scott司各特the first novelist to recreate the pastWaverleyOld MoralityRob RoyThe Heart of MidlothianIvanhoe《艾凡赫》Rob RoyNovelJane Austen 简·奥斯丁Northanger Abbey《诺桑觉寺》Sense and Sensibility《理智与情感》Pride and Prejudice《傲慢与偏见》Mansfield Park《曼斯菲尔德花园》Emma《爱玛》Persuasion 《劝告》Romantic essayCharles Lamb查尔斯·兰姆Tales from Shakespeare《莎士比亚戏剧故事集》Album VersesEssays of Elia《伊利亚随笔》William Hazlitt威廉·赫列特Thomas De Quincey托马斯·德·昆西6. The Victorian Age --- Critical Realism in England (19 century)NovelCharles Dickens查尔斯·狄更斯Oliver Twist《雾都孤儿》The Old Curiocity Shop《老古玩店》The Pickwick Papers《匹克威克外传》fill in the BlanksBeowulf is a folk legend brought to England by the Anglo-Saxons from their primitive Northern Europe.Beowulf was passed down from mouth to mouth.Beowulf was written down in the 10th century.Humanism refers to the literary culture in the Renaissance.Humanism became the central theme of English Renaissance. Thomas More and William Shakespeare are the best representatives of the English humanistsHumanism is the idea that man has a potential for culture which distinguishes him from lower orders of beings, and which he should strive constantly to fulfill.The Renaissance is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation and the economic expansion.Early Plays in Middle Ages include The Miracle Play奇迹剧The Morality Play道德剧The Interlud幕间休息剧The Classical Drama古典剧The immediate predecessors of Shakespeare were a group of men from the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge, who were generally known as the University WitsThe key-note of Hamlet’s character is melancholy，and there can be no Hamlet without melancholyHamlet is a hero of the RenaissanceHamlet’s learning , wisdom, noble nature,limitation and tragedy are all representative of the humanists at the turn of the 17th and the 16th centuries.Shakespeare was skilled in many poetic forms: the song, the sonnet, the couplet, and the dramatic blank verse;He was a great master of English language;He was the summit of the English Renaissance and one of the great writers all over the world.Adam and Eve embody Milton’s belief in the powers of man, craving (longing) for knowledge.Satan is a rebel against tyranny and Satan and his followers resemble a republican ParliamentEnglish enlighteners believed in the power of reason. That is why the 18th century has often been called “the age of rea son” or “the kingdom of reason”.Most of the enlighteners believed that social problems could be solved by human intelligence.this period was characterized by the so-called neo-classicism of which theleading figure was Alexander Pope.The representative of Periodical Literature in Early 18th Century England: Addison and SteeleThe best part of Robinson Crusoe is the realistic account of the successful struggle of Robinson alone against the pitiless forces of nature on the island.A social fable consists of four books. The hero of the novel is Lemuel Gulliver, a doctor. telling about his fantastic visits to some unbelievable places, in which the inhabitants are Lilliputians,the giants Brobdingnagians, Yahoos, and Houyhnhnms.The features of the Romantic writings a dissatisfaction with the bourgeois society.Romantic writings are filled with strong-willed heroes or even titanic images, formidable events and tragic situations, powerful conflicting passions and exotic picturesThe romanticists paid great attention to the spiritual and emotional life of manPersonified nature plays an important role in the pages of Romantic writingsThe publication of the “Lyrical Ballads” marked the break with the conventional poetical tradition of the 18th centuryi wandered lonely contains four six-lined stanzas of iambic tetrameter.The poem is about The beauty of natureQuestion1What is Literature？Literature refers to the practice and profession of writing. It comes from human interest in telling a story, in arranging words in artistic forms, in describing in words some aspects of human experiences.2What is Renaissance?1. DefinitionThe Renaissance (14th – mid-17th century), which means rebirth and revival. The renaissance, therefore, in essence, is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars tried to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church(罗马天主教堂).It is characterized with the growth of a more scientific outlook, major development in art and literature, new invention and overseas discoveries and a general assertion of human value and emancipation(解放) of the human intellect and power.3Summarize the periods of Shakespeare’s literary career and achievements？Shakespeare’s Literary Career⏹Four successive periods with increasing maturity◆1588-1593, the Period of Experiment and Preparation●Richard III, a melodramatic chronicle-history play, largely imitative of Marlowe and yet showing striking power●At the end of this period Shakespeare issued two rather long narrative poems on classical subjects, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece◆1594-1601, the second period Shakespeare’s work, filled with chronicle-history plays and comedies●Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, etc.●Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It●Romeo and Juliet◆1601-1609, the third period of Shakespeare’s literary career, in which appeared Shakespeare’s great tragedies and certain cynical plays●In these plays, Shakespeare sets himself to grapple with the deepest and darkest problems of human characters and life●Shakespeare’s four great tragedies⏹Hamlet: the struggle of a perplexed and divided soul/self⏹Othello: the ruin of a noble life/ man by an evil one through the terrible power of jealousy⏹King Lear: unnatural ingratitude working its hateful will and yetthwarted at the end by its own excess and by faithful love⏹Macbeth: the destruction of a large nature by material ambition◆After 1609, the fourth period of Shakespeare’s literary career, a periodof romance-comedies●Shakespeare did not solve the insoluble problems of life, but having presented them as powerfully, perhaps, as is possible for human intelligence, he turned in his last period to the expression of the serene philosophy of life●Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest(1) Shakespeare is one of the founders of realism in world literature. He maintains that the purpose of dramatic performance is "to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature". In his works, he paints the decline of the old feudal nobility and the vice of the new Tudor monarch. Besides,his plays have good plots and life-like characters too. His drama is an expression, a monument of the English Renaissance since he wrote about his own people for his own time.(2)Shakespeare is amazingly prolific Within 22 years, he produced 37 plays, 154 sonnets,and 2 long poems. No two of his play invoke the same feeling or image among the audience. He is a master-hand for every form of drama-comedy, tragedy, and historical plays. He gives us a world of full-blooded people who live and struggle, suffer and rejoice-representing all the complexitiesand implications of real life.(3)Shakespeare was skilled in many poetic forms: the song, the sonnet, the couplet, andthe dramatic blank verse. And he is a great master of the English language. He used a vocabulary larger than any other English writersMany of his new c oinage and turns of expressions havebecome every-day usage in English life. Shakespeare and the Authorized Version of the EnglishBible are the two great treasures of the English language.(4)Hence, Shakespeare has been universallyacknowledged to be the summit of theEnglish Renaissance, and one of the greatest writers the world over. 3Chaucer’s Contribution？1. He introduced from Italy and France the rhymed stanza of various types, especially the rhymed couplet of 5 accents in iambic meter (heroic couplet) to English poetry, instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.2. He was the first great poet who wrote in English language (Middle English), thus establishing English as the literary language.3. He did much in making the London dialect the foundation for modern English language4What is the Enlightenment Movement?The 18th century marked the beginning of an intellectual movement in Europe, known as the Enlightenment, which was, on the whole, an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners fought against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism.What is romanticism? What about its feature?1. The general feature is a dissatisfaction with the bourgeois society.2. Their writings are filled with strong-willed heroes or even titanic images, formidable events and tragic situations, powerful conflicting passions and exotic pictures.3. The romanticists paid great attention to the spiritual and emotional life of man.Personified nature plays an important role in the pages of their works.文学赏析Beowulf:---national epic(1) Goodness conquers evil. (Beowulf stands for all that is good, brave and proper, while the monsters stand for evil.)(2) Men against nature (The poem presents a vivid picture of how the primitive people wage heroic struggles against the hostile forces of the natural world under a wise and mighty leader.)(3) Judge the greatness of a human being by the greatness of his deeds and his noble ancestry.(4) Help thy neighbor. (Beowulf risks his life to help a neighbor, King Hrothgar, in trouble.)(5) Forces of darkness—irrational, menacing—are always at work in society.The writing features of Beowulf1). The most important is in alliterative(头韵的) verse and in artistic form.2). Another is the frequent use of metaphors and understatements(暗含的意义) for ironical humor.The Faerie(Fairy) Queene and Commentsa long poem1 The dominating thoughts of it: nationalism, humanism and Puritanism2 The Spenserian stanza: a verse form consisting of 8 iambic pentameter lines followed by a ninth line of 6 iambic feet with the rhyme scheme ababbcbcc.3 The Faerie Queene is the first national epic of England in the age of the Renaissance. It expresses the poet’s patriotic feelings of national greatness, and voices the moral ideals of the English aristocracy as embodied in the noble, virtuous and brave knight.The Image of Hamlet1. He is a humanist free from medieval prejudice and superstition. He has love for the world rather than heaven, he cherishes a firm belief inman’s power and destiny.2. He loves good and hates evil. He adore his father, loves Ophelia and greets his school-fellows with hearty welcome, while he is disgusted with his uncle’s drunkenness and shocked by his mother’s shallowness3. His intellectual genius is outstanding. He is a close observer. He can easily see through people. His quick perception drives him to penetrate below the surface of things and question what others take for granted. He is scholar, soldier and statesman. His image reflects the versatility of the men of the Renaissance.The Merchant of VeniceThe traditional themeTo praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable greed and brutality of the Jew.The modern interpretationTo regard the play as a satire of the Christians’hypocrisy and their false standards of friendship and love, their cunning ways of pursuing worldliness and their unreasoning prejudice against Jews, here represented by ShylockParadise lost1. The theme of the poem is a revolt against God’s authority.2. God: selfish despot暴君,cruel, unjust3. Adam and Eve embody Milton’s belief in the powers of man, craving (longing) for knowledge4. God’s angels are foolish, resembling the court of an absolute monarch.5. Satan is a rebel against tyranny(专制，暴行) and Satan and his followers resemble a republican ParliamentThe Image of Satan1. Satan is the real hero of the poem.2. He is firmer than the rest of the angels.3. He has an invincible(战无不胜的) heart.4. Satan remains superior in nobility and welcomes his defeat and his torments as a glory, a liberty and a joy;5. Satan is the spirit questioning the authority of God.6. Milton makes Satan as his own mouthpiece(代言人).The Pilgrim’s ProgressB unyan’s language1.Bunyan’s language is chiefly plain and colloquial and quite modern in comparison with that of the writers of the Renaissance.2. His language is clear, vivid, natural, homely (朴实的), fluent, musical and powerful.3. He paved the way not only in language style but also in writing technique of novels, for the novelists of the 18th century as Swift and Defoe.The image of Robinson Crusoe1.One of the representative of the rising bourgeoisie2. An enterprising Englishman3. A laborer, a hard-working industrious and intelligent man.4. A typical colonizer, explorer, and a foreign trader.5.He is alert, vigorous and resourcefulBlake’s poems such as tiger 《老虎》and comments on Blank(1) Blake’s poems seem easy but difficult to understand for his m mysterious images and symbols, unless versed in ( skilled at )religious knowledge.(2) Blake’s poems are full of emotion and apparent presentation of his progressive democratic idea in symbolismComments1) Blake was opposed to the classicism of the 18th century.2) His poems were full of romantic spirit, imagery symbolism and revolutionary spirit.3) He was a Pre-Romanticist or forerunner of the romantic poetry of the 19th century.Comments on Burns & His Poems1. Burns was one of the most famous poetsof the peasants in the world.2. He obtained the characteristic of all old Scottish songs: simplicity, vividness, humor, directness and optimism, with anew spirit of romanticism.Explanation William Wordsworth poem i wandered lonely【赏析】：这首诗写于诗人从法国回来不久。
(完整word版)英美文学术语(英文版)_literary_terms
Alliteration:押头韵repetition of the initial sounds（不一定是首字母)Allegory：寓言a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. Allusion:典故a reference in a literary work to person, place etc. often to well-known characters or events。
Archetype：原型Irony：反讽intended meaning is the opposite of what is statedBlack humor：黑色幽默Metaphor: 暗喻Ballad：民谣about the folk logeEpic：史诗in poetry, refers to a long work dealing with the actions of gods and heroes. Romance：罗曼史/骑士文学is a popular literary form in the medieval England。
/Chivalry Euphuism: 夸饰文体This kind of style consists of two distinct elements。
The first is abundant use of balanced sentences，alliterations and other artificial prosodic means。
The second element is the use of odd similes and comparisons.Spenserian stanza: It refers to a stanza of nine lines，with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter. 斯宾塞诗节新诗体，每一节有9排,前8排是抑扬格五步格诗，第9排是抑扬格六步格诗。
英美文学有关术语
1. Epic 史诗，叙事诗A long narrative poem, typically a recounting of history or legendor of the deeds of a national hero and of reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. Many epics were drawn from anoral tradition and were transmitted by song and recitation beforethey were written down. Later on this literary genre was written down by the poets, such as Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained. Twoof the greatest epics are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. While in British literary history, the national epic is Beowulf.2. Metaphysical Poetry [.metə'fizikəl]玄学派诗歌T he poetry of John Donne and other seventeenth-century poets who wrote in a similar style. Metaphysical poetry is characterized by verbal wit and excess, ingenious structure, irregular meter, colloquial language, elaborate imagery, and a drawing together of dissimilar ideas.3. Sentimentalism 感伤主义Sentimentalism originated in the 18th century, and was a direct reaction against the cold, hard commercialism and rationalism that had dominated people’s life since the last decades of the 17th century. Besides, it seemed to have appeared hand in hand with the rise of realistic English novel. Sentimentalism often relates to sentimentality and sensibility in some literary works such as Richardson’s Pamela; Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield; S terne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. In Poetry, we have Thomas Gray’s “An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village”, and Cowper’s “Task”, not mention the various odes of sensibility which flourished in the later half of the century.4. Humanism 人道主义Humanism refers to the main literary trend and is the keynote of English Renaissance. Humanists took interest in human life and human activities and gave expression to the new feeling of admiration for human beauty, human achievement.5. Puritanism 清教主义The term is used in a narrow sense of religious practice and attitudes, and in a broad sense of an ethical outlook, which is much less easy to define.1). In its strict sense, “Puritan” was applied to tho se Protestant reformers who rejected Queen Elizabeth’s religious settlement of 1560. This settlement sought a middle way between Roman Catholicism and the extreme spirit of reform of Geneva. The Puritans, influenced by Geneva, Zurich, and other continental centers, objected to the retention of bishops and to any appearance of what they regarded as superstition in church worship---the wearing of vestments by the priests, and any kind of religious image. Apart from their united opposition to Roman Catholicism and their insistence on simplicity in religious forms, Puritans disagreed among themselves on questions of doctrine and church organization. Puritans were very strong in the first half of 17th century and reached its peak of power after the Civil War of 1642-6, a war, which was ostensibly religious, although it was also political.2). In the broad sense of a whole way of life, Puritanism has always represented strict obedience to the dictates of conscience and strong emphasis on the virtue of self-denial. The word “Puritan” is often thought to imply hostility to arts, but this is not necessarily true.6. Renaissance [rə'neisəns]文艺复兴It is a cultural movement of the rising bourgeoisie. The key word for it is humanism, which emphasizes the belief in human beings, his environment and doings and his brave fight for the emancipation of man from the tyranny of the church and religious dogmas. It originally indicates a revival of classical arts and learning after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism. Its aim is to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval time and introduce new ideas that express the interests of the rising bourgeoisie. Shakespeare, Spenser, and Marlowe are all famous literary figures in this period.7.. Neo-classicism：新古典派A revival in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of classical standards of order, balance and harmony in literature. John Dryden was the first person who started the movement at the end of the 17th century, while Alexander Pope brought it to its culmination.8. Sentimentalism：Sentimentalism originated in the 18th century, and was a direct reaction against the cold, hard commercialism and rationalism that had dominatedpeople’s life since the last decades of the 17th century. Besides, it seemed to have appeared hand in hand with the rise of realistic English novel. Sentimentalism often relates to sentimentality and sensibility in some literary works such as Richardson’s Pamela; Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield; Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey t hrough France and Italy. In Poetry, we have Thomas Gray’s “An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village”，not mention the various odes of sensibility which flourished in the later half of the century.9.Enlightenment：启蒙Enlightenment is a progressive intellectual movement, which sweptover England and other lands in Western Europe in the 18th century. Enlightenment freed and reformed the thinking of man. Enlighteners strove to clear away the feudal remnants and replace them by bourgeois ideologue.10. “Transcendentalism”[.trænsen'dentəlizəm]超验主义is defined as the recognition in man of the capacity of acquiring knowledge transcending the reach of the five senses, or of knowing truth intuitively, or of reaching the divine without the need of an intercessor. It was the first American intellectual movement. It stressed the power of intuition and the significance of the individual. It placed spirit first and matter second, and took nature as symbolic of God.11. Naturalism 自然主义Is a kind of social Darwinism, which holds that the weak and stupid would fall victim to economic forces. Literary naturalism holds that humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment, and that the universe is cold and hostile to human desires. American naturalists wrote in a daring, open, and direct manner.12. Local Colorism: 本土特色地方色彩The local color writing was a form of regionalism popular after the Civil War. As a subordinate order of realism, regionalism (乡土主义，地方色彩) stresses a faithful representation of the habits, speech, manners, history, folklore, or beliefs of a particular geographical section. It’s characterized by vernacular language and satirical humor.13. Imagism: 意象主义It is a Movement in U.S. and English poetry characterized by the use of concrete language and figures of speech, modern subject matter, metrical freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.It grew out of the Symbolist Movement in 1912 and was initially led by Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and others.14.Metaphysical: 玄学派诗歌或诗人的It refers to the school of poets that appeared in the Revolutionary period in England by using quite unconventional and often surprising conceits; the metaphysical poets wrote poems full of wits and humor. But sometimes the logic argument and conceits become persuasive, going to preposterous dimensions. The language is colloquial but very powerful, creating unorthodox images on the reader’s mind. John Donne is the representative metaphysical poets.15. Blank verse: 无韵诗，素体诗Blank verse is unrhymed poetry, typically in iambic pentameter, and, as such, the dominant verse form of English dramatic and narrative poetry since the mid-16th century. Blank verse is not written in stanza form. Instead, the poem is developed in verse paragraphs that vary in length. Blank verse is flexible form of expression that gives the poet a choice of many variations within the metrical pattern. Because of its flexibility, blank verse is especially appropriate for narrative and dramatic poetry and other longer kinds of poetry. Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare used this form with great power and variety in their plays.16. Free verse: (不受格律约束的)自由诗体Free verse refers to a kind of poetry whose rhythmical lines vary in length, adhering to no fixed metrical pattern or the usually rhyming system, such poetry may seem formless, but it does have a form or pattern, often largely based on repetition and parallel structure. Walt Whitman’s poems are typical example.。
英美文学名词解释
English LiteratureI.Definitions of literary terms:Epic (or Heroic Poetry)It is, originally, an oral narrative poem, majestic both in theme and style. Epics deal with legendary or historical events of national or universal significance. Most epics deal with the exploits of a single individual, thereby giving unity to the composition. Commonplace details of everyday life may appear, but they serve as background for the story and are described in merely entertaining stories of legendary or historical heroes; they summarize and express the nature or ideals of an entire nation at a significant or crucial period of its history. Examples include the ancient Greek epics by the poet Homer, t he Iliad and the Odyssey, The characteristics of the hero of an epic are national rather than individual, and the exercise of those traits in heroic deeds serves to gratify a sense of national pride. At other times epics may synthesize the ideals of a great religious or cultural movement. The Faerie Queene by the English poet Edmund Spenser represents the spirits of the Renaissance in England and like Paradise Lost by the English poet John Milton, represents the ideals of Christian humanism.Legend A song or narrative handed down from the past. Legends differ from myths on the basis of the elements of historical truth they contain. One speaks, for example, of Arthurian legend because there is some historical evidence of Arthur's existence.Romance It is a literary genre popular in the Middle Ages (5 th century) , dealing, in verse or prose, with legendary, supernatural, or amorous subjects and characters, The name refers to Romance languages and originally denoted any lengthy composition in one of those languages. Later the term was applied to tales specifically concerned with knights, chivalry, and courtly love. The romance and the epics are similar forms, but epics tend to be longer and less concerned with courtly love. Romance were written by court musicians, clerics, scribes, and aristocrats for the entertainment and moral edification of the nobility. Popular subjects for romances included the Macedonian King Alexander the Great, King Arthur. Of Britain and the knights of the Round Table, and the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne. Later prose and verse narratives, particularly those in the 19 th century romantic tradition, are also referred to as romances; set in distant or mythological places and times, like most romances they stress adventures and supernatural elements.Fable It is a short literary composition in prose or verse, conveying a universal cautionary or moral truth. The moral is usually summed up at the end of the story, which generally tells of conflict among animals that are given the attributes of human beings.Spenserian Stanza In The Faerie Queene, Spenser, a poet in the 16th century, originated a nine-line verse stanza, now known as the Spenserian-stanza -- the fist eight lines are iambic pentameter, and the ninth, iambic hexameter; the rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc. For example, George Byron used this verse form in his Child Harold's Pilgrimage.Humanism Broadly, this term suggests any attitude which tends to exalt the human element or stress the importance of human interests, as opposed to the supernatural, divine elements ------ or as opposed to the grosser, animal elements. In a more specific sense, humanism suggests a devotion to those studies supposed to promote human culture most effectively --- in particular, those dealing with the life, thought, language, and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. In literary history the most important use of the term is to designate the revival of classical culture which accompanied the Renaissance.Metaphysical Poetry The term is commonly used to name the work of the 17th century writers who wroteunder the influence of John Donne. With a rebellious spirit, the metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. The diction is simple as compared with that of the Elizabethan or the neoclassic periods, and echoes the words and cadences of common speech. The imagery is drawn from the actual life. The form is frequently that of an argument with the poet’s beloved, with God, or with himself.Classicism As a critical term, a body of doctrine thought to be derived from or to reflect the qualities of ancient Greek and Roman culture, particularly in literature, philosophy, art, or criticism. Classicism stands for certain definite ideas and attitudes, mainly drawn from the critical utterances of the Greeks and Romans or developed through an imitation of ancient art and literature. These include restraint, restricted scope, dominance of reason, sense of form, unity of design and aim, clarity, simplicity, balance, attention to structure and logical organization, chasteness in style, severity of outline, moderation, self-control, intellectualism, decorum, respect for tradition, imitation, conservatism, and "good sense".Blank Verse Blank verse is unrhymed poetry, typically in iambic pentameter, and, as such, the dominant verse form of English dramatic and narrative poetry since the mid-16 th century. Blank verse was adapted by Italian Renaissance writers from classical sources; it became the standard form of dramatists. Christopher Marlowe used blank verse for dramatic verse; and English playwright William Shakespeare transformed blank verse into a supple instrument, uniquely capable of conveying speech rhythms and emotional overtones. According to the English poet John Milton, only unrhymed verse could give English the dignity of a classical language.Elegy It is , originally in classical Greek and Roman literature, a poem composed of couplets. Classical elegies addressed various subjects, including love, lamentation, and politics, and were characterized by their metric form. Since the 16 th century elegies have been characterized not by their form but by their content, which is invariably melancholy and centers on death. The best-known elegy in English is Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, by the English poet Thomas Gray, which treats not just a single death but the human condition as well.The Enlightenment Movement The eighteenth-century England is known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. The enlightenment movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept through the whole Western Europe at the time.The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas.The enlighteners celebrated reason or rationality, quality and science. They called for a reference to order, reason and rules and advocated universal education. Famous among the great enlighteners in England were those great writers like John Dryden, Alexander Pope and so on.Neoclassicism The term mainly applies to the classical tendency which dominated the literature of the early period. It was, at least in part, the result of a reaction against the fires of passion which had blazed in the late Renaissance, especially in the metaphysical poetry. It found its artists models in the classical literature of the ancient Greek and Roman writers like Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, etc. and in the contemporary French writers such as V oltaire and Diderot. It put the stress on the classical artistic ideals of order, logic, proportion, restrained emotion, accuracy, good taste and decorum. Such elegant style were found in almost all the writings of the period, especially in those of John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edward Gibbon, the man who wrote the famous history The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776--1788), and other neoclassicist writers. They were careful imitators. Theirapproach was thoroughly professional. Their works, mostly refined the perfect, are conscientious craftsmanship and often highly didactic. Neoclassical poetry, as represented by Dryden, Pope, and Johnson, reached its stylistic perfection during the period, although to the modern readers it seems to lack in imagination and energy. The neoclassical poetry is one of the most significant phenomena in the literature of the age, to which it has given its name.The Realistic Novel The rise and flourish of modern English novel is another important phenomenon of the eighteenth-century English literature.After the bourgeois revolution, the English middle-class people were ready to cast away the aristocratic literature of feudalism and to create a new kind of realistic literature of their own to express their ideas and serve their interests. Thus instead of the life of kings and feudal lords, the whole life in its ordinary aspects of the middle class became a major source of interest in English literature. This change of subject matter was most obvious in the new literary form of English realistic novel. Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Steme, Goldsmith and Smollett were among the major novelists of the time. By combining the allegorical tradition of the moral fables with the picaresque tradition of the lower-caste stories, they achieved in their works both realism and moral teaching. The influence of their was very great both at home and abroad. It found impact in some of the great works of European writers paved the way for the great nineteenth-century realistic writers like Jane Austen , Walter Scott, Charles Dickens and William Thackeray.The Romantic Movement It expressed a more or less negative attitude toward the existing social and political conditions that came with industrialization and the growing importance of the bourgeoisie. The Romantics felt that the existing society denied people’s essential human needs, so they demonstrated a strong reaction against the dominant modes of thinking of the 18th century writers and philosophers. Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit. It designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and all experience. It also places the individual at the center of art, making literature most valuable as an expression of his or her unique feelings and particular attitudes, and valuing its accuracy in portraying the individual’s experiences.Gothic Novel The term "Gothic" derived from the frequent setting of the tales in the ruined, moss-covered castles of the Middle Ages, but it has been extended to any novel which exploits the possibilities of mystery and terror in gloomy, craggy landscapes, decaying mansions with dark dungeons, secret passage, instruments of torture, ghostly visitations, ghostly music or voices, ancient drapes and tapestries behind which lurks no one knows what, and often, as the central story, the persecution of a beautiful maiden by an obsessed and haggard villain. These novels, in rebellion against the increasing commercialism and rationalism, opened up to later fiction the dark, irrational side of human nature ----- the savage egoism, the perverse impulses, and the nightmarish terror that lie beneath the controlled and ordered surface of the conscious mind.Sentimentalism Sentimentality and sensibility are two terms frequently used in reference to some literary works of the 18 th century. They are today used as mutually exchangeable terms. Poetry and fiction of sentimentality or sensibility, as a literary genre, didn't start all of a sudden in the 18 th century, though it was not often found earlier than that. It was a direct reaction against the cold, hard commercialism and rationalism which had dominated people's life since the last decades of the 17 th century. Besides, it seemed to have appeared hand in hand with the rise of realistic English novel. In fiction, it was first found in Pamela, an early English realistic novel by Samuel Richardson. By concentrating on the distresses of the poor unfortunate and virtuous people, he was actually demonstrating that effusive emotion was virtuous people, he was actually demonstrating that effusive emotion was evidence of kindness and goodness. Besides, sensibility also finds pleasure in the wildness of nature, in the lawlessness of the exotic, and in indulgence in sensations of fear and awe before the mysterious or theinexplicable. In poetry, we find representative works in Thomas Gray's "An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (1750), Goldsmith's "The Deserted Village" (1770) and Cowper's "The Task" (1785), not to mention the various odes of sensibility which flourished in the later half of the century.Dramatic Monologue By dramatic monologue it is meant that a poet chooses a dramatic moment or a crisis, in which his characters are made to talk about their lives, and about their minds and hearts. In “listening” to those one-sided talks, readers can form their own opinions and judgments about the speaker’s personality and about what has really happened. Robert Browning brought this poetic form to its maturity and perfection and his “My Last Duchess” is one of the best known dramatic monologues.Stream of ConsciousnessThe term refers to the narrative method of capturing and representing the inner workings of a character’s mind. The term “stream of consciousness” was first used by William James in his Principles of Psychology (1890). It is used to indicate a literary approach to the presentation of psychological aspects of characters in fiction.Generally speaking, there are two levels of consciousness: “the speech level” and “the prespeech level”. The prespeech levels of consciousness are not censored, not rationally controlled or logically ordered. And stream-of-consciousness novel can be defined as a type of novel in which the basic emphasis is placed on exploration of the prespeech level of consciousness for the purpose of revealing the psychic being of the characters and of studying human nature. The realm of life with which stream-of-consciousness novel is concerned is mental and spiritual experience, such as sensations, memories, imaginations, conceptions, intuitions, feelings and the process of association.Dorothy Richardson, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner are usually regarded as the most prominent stream-of-consciousness novelists. What these writers have contributed to novel is broadly one thing: they have opened up a new area of life for novel by adding mental functioning and psychic existence to fiction and by creating a novel centered on the core of human experience.。
英美文学名词解释TermsinEnglishLiterature
1. Epic (史诗)An extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a legendary or traditional hero.史诗：用严肃或庄重的语言写成的叙事长诗，歌颂传奇中或历史上英雄的丰功伟绩2. Romance (传奇故事)An imaginative literature that is set in an idealized world and that deals with heroic adventures and battles between good and devil.传奇故事：设定在想象世界中的以英雄冒险和善恶之间的斗争为题材的文学作品。
3. Humanism（人文主义）Humanism is the idea that man has a potential for culture which distinguishes him from lower orders of beings, and which he should strive constantly to fulfill.Rebellious spirit against the Medieval feudal value and blind faith in humbleness, servitude,and after-life. Belief in man’s divinity and capability of self-perfection. Emphasis of the importance of personal worth and enjoyment of the present life.4. Sonnet (十四行诗)A 14-line verse form usually written in iambic pentameter.十四行诗：一种由十四行组成的诗歌形式，通常以五步抑扬格为押韵形式。
英美文学之文学术语
英美文学之文学术语文学术语汇编11.Literature of the absurd: (荒诞派文学) The term is applied to a number of works in drama and prose fiction which have in common the sense that the human condition is essentially absurd, and that this condition can be adequately represented only in works of literature that are themselves absurd. The current movement emerged in France after the Second World War, as a rebellion against essential beliefs and values of traditional culture and traditional literature. They hold the belief that a human being is an isolated existent who is cast into an alien universe and the human life in its fruitless search for purpose and meaning is both anguish and absurd.2.Theater of the absurd: (荒诞派戏剧) belongs to literature of the absurd. Two representatives of this school are Eugene Ionesco, French author of The Bald Soprano (1949) (此作品中文译名<秃头歌女>), and Samuel Beckett, Irish author of Waiting for Godot (1954) (此作品是荒诞派戏剧代表作<等待戈多>). They project the irrationalism, helplessness and absurdity of life in dramatic forms that reject realistic settings, logical reasoning, or a coherently evolving plot.3.Black comedy or black humor: (黑色幽默) it mostly employed to describe baleful, naïve, or inept characters in a fantastic or nightmarish modern world playing out their roles in what Ionesco called a “tragic farce”, in which the events are often simultaneously comic, horrifying, and absurd. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (美国著名作家约瑟夫海勒<二十二条军规>) can be taken as an example of the employment of this technique.文学术语汇编24. Aestheticism or the Aesthetic Movement（唯美主义）: it began to prevail in Europe at the middle of the 19th century. The theory of “art for art’s sake” was first put forward by some French artists. They declared that art should serve no religious, moral or social purpose. The two most important representatives of aestheticists in English literature are Walt Pater and Oscar Wilde.5. Allegory（寓言）: a tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities, such as John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. An allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.6. Fable（寓言）: is a short narrative, in prose or verse, that exemplifies an abstract moral thesis or principle of human behavior. Most common is the beast fable, in which animals talk and act like the human types they represent. The fables in Western cultures derive mainly from the stories attributed to Aesop, a Greek slave of the sixth century B. C.7. Parable（寓言）: is a very short narrative about human beings presented so as to stress analogy with a general lesson that the narrator is trying to bring home to his audience. For example, the Bible contains lots of parables employed by Jesus Christ to make his flock understand his preach.(注意以上三个词在汉语中都翻译成语言，但是内涵并不相同，不要搞混)8. Alliteration（头韵）: the repetition of the initial consonant sounds. In Old English alliterative meter, alliteration is the principal organizing device of the verse line, such as in Beowulf.9. Consonance is the repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants but with a change in the intervening vowel, such as “live and love”.10. Assonance is the repetition of identical or similar vowel, especially in stressed syllables, in a sequence of nearby words, such as “child of silence”.11. Allusion （典故）is a reference without explicit identification, to a literary or historical person, place, or event, or to another literary work or passage. Most literary allusions are intended to be recognized by the generally educated readers of the author’s time, but some are aimed at a special group.12. Ambiguity（复义性）: Since William Empson（燕卜荪）published Seven Types of Ambiguity（《复义七型》）, the term has been widely used in criticism to identify a deliberate poetic device: the use of a single word or expression to signify two or more distinct references, or to express two or more diverse attitudes or feeling.文学术语汇编313. Antihero（反英雄）：the chief character in a modern novel or play whose character is totally different from the traditional heroes. Instead of manifesting largeness, dignity, power, or heroism, the antihero is petty, passive, ineffectual or dishonest. For example, the heroine of Defoe’s Moll Flanders is a thief and a prostitute.14. Antithesis（对照）：(a figure of speech)An antithesis is often expressed in a balanced sentence, that is, a sentence in which identical or similar syntactic structure is used to express contrasting ideas. For example, “Marriage has many pains, but celibacy（独身生活）has no pleasures.” by Samuel Johnson obviously employs antithesis.15. Archaism（拟古）：the literary use of words and expressions that have become obsolete in the common speech of an era. For example, the translators of the King James Version of Bible gave weight and dignity to their prose by employing archaism.16. Atmosphere（氛围）: the prevailing mood or feeling of a literary work. Atmosphere is often developed, at least in part, through descriptions of setting. Such descriptions help to create an emotional climate to establish the reader’s expectations and attitudes.文学术语汇编417. Ballad（民谣）：it is a song, transmitted orally, which tells a story. It originated and was communicated orally among illiterate or only partly literate people. It exists in many variant forms. The most common stanza form, called ballad stanza is a quatrain in alternate four- and three-stress lines; usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme. Although many traditional ballads probably originated in the late Middle Age, they were not collected and printed until the eighteenth century.18. Climax：as a rhetorical device it means an ascending sequence of importance. As a literary term, it can also refer to the point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a story’s turning point. The action leading to the climax and the simultaneous increaseof tension in the plot are known as the rising action. All action after the climax is referred to as the falling action, or resolution. The term crisis is sometimes used interchangeably with climax.19. Anticlimax（突降）：it denotes a writer’s deliberate drop from the serious and elevated to the trivial and lowly, in order to achieve a comic or satiric effect. It is a rhetorical device in English.20. Beat Generation（垮掉一代）：it refers to a loose-knit group of poets and novelists, writing in the second half of the 1950s and early 1960s, who shared a set of social attitudes – antiestablishment, antipolitical, anti-intellectual, opposed to the prevailing cultural, literary, and moral values, and in favor of unfettered self-realization andself-expression. Representatives of the group include Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. And most famous literary creations produced by this group should be Allen Ginsberg’s long poem Howl and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.文学术语汇编521. Biography（传记）：a detailed account of a person’s life written by another person, such as Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the English Poets and James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson.22. Autobiography（自传）：a person’s account of his or her own life, such as Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography.23. Blank verse（无韵体）: Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It is the verse form used in some of the greatest English poetry, including that of William Shakespeare and John Milton.24. A parody（模仿）imitates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work, or the distinctive style of a particular author, or the typical stylistic and other features of a serious literary genre, and deflates the original by applying the imitation to a lowly or comically inappropriate subject.文学术语汇编625. Celtic Revival also known as the Irish Literary Renaissance （爱尔兰文艺复兴）identifies the remarkably creative period in Irish literature from about 1880 to the death of William Butler Yeats in 1939. The aim of Yeats and other early leaders of the movement was to create a distinctively national literature by going back to Irish history, legend, and folklore, as well as to native literary models. The major writers of this movement include William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, John Millington Synge and Sean O’Casey and so on.26. Characters（人物）are the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with particular moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities by inferences from the dialogues, actions and motivations. E. M. Forster divides characters into two types: flat character, which is presented without much individualizing detail; and round character, which is complex in temperament and motivation and is represented with subtle particularity.27. Chivalric Romance (or medieval romance) （骑士传奇或中世纪传奇）is a type of narrative that developed in twelfth-century France, spread to the literatures of other countries. Its standard plot is that of a quest undertaken by a single knight in order to gain a lady’s favor; frequently its central interest is courtly love, together with tournaments fought and dragons and monsters slain. It stresses the chivalric ideals of courage, loyalty, honor, mercifulness to an opponent, and elaborate manners.28. Comedy:（喜剧）in general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable armistice between the protagonist and society.29. Farce （闹剧）is a type of comedy designed to provoke the audience to simple and hearty laughter. To do so it commonly employs highly exaggerated types of characters and puts them into improbable and ludicrous situations.30. Confessional poetry（自白派诗歌）designates a type of narrative and lyric verse, given impetus by Robert Lowell’s Life Studies, which deals with the facts and intimate mental and physical experiences of the poet’s own life. Confessional poetry was written in rebellion against the demand for impersonality by T. S. Elliot and the New Criticism. The representative writers of confessional school include Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath and so on.31. Critical Realism:（批判现实主义）The critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the fouties and in the beginning of fifties. 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. Representative writers of this trend include Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray and so on.32. Drama:（戏剧）The form of composition designed for performance in the theater, in which actors take the roles of the characters, perform the indicated action, and utter the written dialogue. (The common alternative name for a dramatic composition is a play.)文学术语汇编733. Dramatic Monologue:（戏剧独白）a monologue is a lengthy speech by a single person. Dramatic monologue does not designate a component in a play, but a type of lyric poem that was perfected by Robert Browning. By using dramatic monologue, a single person, who is patently not the poet, utters the speech that makes up the whole of the poem, in a specific situation at a critical moment. For example, Robert Browning’s famous poem “My Last Duchess” was written in dramatic monologue. 34. Elegy（哀歌或挽歌）：a poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual. An elegy is a type of lyric poem, usually formal in language and structure, and solemn or even melancholy in tone.35. Enlightenment（启蒙运动）：The name applied to an intellectual movement which developed in Western Europe during the seventeenth century and reached its height in the eighteenth. The common element was a trust in human reason as adequate to solve the crucial problems and to establish the essential norms in life, together with the belief that the application of reason was rapidly dissipating the remaining feudal traditions. It influenced lots of famous English writers especially those neoclassic writers, such as Alexander Pope.36. Epic（史诗）：it is a long verse narrative on a serious subject, told in a formal and elevated style, and centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a tribe, a nation, or the human race.37. Epiphany:（顿悟）In the early draft of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce employed this term to signify a sudden sense of radiance and revelation that one may feel while perceiving a commonplace object. “Epiphany” now has become the standard term for the description, frequent in modern poetry and prose fiction, of the sudden flare into revelation of an ordinary object or scene.38. Epithet（移就）: as a term in criticism, epithet denotes an adjective or adjectival phrase used to define a distinctive quality of a person or thing. This method was widely employed in ancient epics. For example, in Homer’s epic, the epithet like “the wine-dark sea” can be found everywhere.39. Essay:（散文）any short composition in prose that undertakes to discuss a matter, express a point of view, persuade us to accept a thesis on any subject, or simply entertain. The essay can be divided as the formal essay and the informal essay (familiar essay).40. Euphemism（委婉语）: An inoffensive expression used in place of a blunt one that is felt to be disagreeable or embarrassing, such as “pass away” instead of “die”41. Expressionism（表现主义）：a German movement in literature and the other arts which was at its height between 1910 and 1925 – that is, in the period just before, during, and after WWⅠ. The expressionist artist or writer undertakes to express a personal vision – usually a troubled or tensely emotional vision – of human life and human society. This is done by exaggerating and distorting. We recognize its effects, direct or indirect, on the writing and staging of such plays as Arthur Miller’s Death ofa Salesman as well as on the theater of the absurd.42. Free verse（自由体诗）：Like traditional verse, it is printed in short lines instead of with the continuity of prose, but it differs from such verse by the fact that its rhythmic pattern is not organized into a regular metrical form – that is, into feet, or recurrent units of weak and strong stressed syllables. Most free verse also hasirregular line lengths, and either lacks rhyme or else uses it only occasionally. Walt Whitman is a representative who employed this poem form successfully.文学术语汇编843. Gothic novel:（哥特式小说）It is a type of prose fiction. The writers of this type of fictions mostly set their stories in the medieval period and in a Catholic country, especially Italy or Spain. The locale was often a gloomy castle. The typical story focused on the sufferings imposed on an innocent heroine by a cruel villain. This type of fictions made bountiful use of ghosts, mysterious disappearances, and other supernatural occurrences. The principle aim of such novels was to evoke chilling terror and the best of this type opened up to the fiction the realm of the irrational and of the perverse impulses and nightmarish terrors that lie beneath the orderly surface of the civilized mind. Some famous novelists liked to employ some Gothic elements in their novels, such as Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.44. Graveyard poets（墓园派诗歌）: A term applied to eighteenth-century poets who wrote meditative poems, usually set in a graveyard, on the theme of human mortality, in moods which range from pensiveness to profound gloom. The vogue resulted in one of the most widely known English poems, Thomas Gray’s“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”.45. Harlem Renaissance（哈莱姆文艺复兴）：a period of remarkable creativity in literature, music, dance, painting, and sculpture by African-Americans, from the end of the First World War in 1917 through the 1920s. As a result of the mass migrations to the urban North in order to escape the legal segregation of the American South, and also in order to take advantage of the jobs opened to African Americans at the beginning of the War, the population of the region of Manhattan known as Harlem became almost exclusively Black, and the vital center of African American culture in America. Distinguished writers who were part of the movement included Langston Hughes and Jean Toomer. The Great Depression of 1929 and the early 1930s broughtthe period of buoyant Harlem culture – which had been fostered by prosperity in the publishing industry and the art world – effectively to an end.46. Heroic Couplet（英雄双韵体）refers to lines of iambic pentameter which rhyme in pairs: aa, bb, cc, and so on. The adjective “heroic” was applied in the later seventeenth century because of the frequent use of such couplets in heroic poems and dramas. This verse form was introduced into English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. From the age of John Dryden through that of Samuel Johnson, the heroic couplet was the predominant English measure for all the poetic kinds; some poets, including Alexander Pope, used it almost to the exclusion of other meters.47. Hyperbole（夸张）:this figure of speech called hyperbole is bold overstatement, or the extravagant exaggeration of fact or of possibility. It may be used either for serious or ironic or comic effect.48. Understatement（轻描淡写）：this figure of speech deliberately represents something as very much less in magnitude or importance than it really is, or is ordinarily considered to be. The effect is usually ironic.49. Imagism（意象派）：it was a poetic vogue that flourished in England, and even more vigorously in America, between the years 1912 and 1917. It was planned and exemplified by a group of English and American writers in London, partly under the influence of the poetic theory of T. E. Hulme, as a revolt against the sentimental and mannerish poetry at the turn of the century. The typical Imagist poetry is written in free verse and undertakes to be as precisely and tersely as possible. Meanwhile, the Imagist poetry likes to express the writers’ momentary impression of a visual object or scene and often the impression is rendered by means of metaphor without indicating a relation. Most famous Imagist poem, “In a Station of the Metro”, was written by Ezra Pound. Imagism was too restrictive to endure long as a concerted movement, but it influenced almost all modern poets of Britain and America.50. Irony（反讽）：This term derives from a character in a Greek comedy. In most of the modern critical uses of the term “irony”, there remains the root sense of dissembling or hiding what is actually the case; not, however, in order to deceive, but to achieve rhetorical or artistic effects.51. Local Colorism（地方色彩）was a literary trend belonging to Realism. It refers to the detailed representation in prose fiction of the setting, dialect, customs, dress and ways of thinking and feeling which are distinctive of a particular region. After the Civil War a number of American writers exploited the literary possibilities of local color in various parts of America. The most famous representative of local colorism should be Mark Twain who took his hometown near the Mississippi as the typical setting of nearly all his novels.52. Lyric（抒情诗）：in the most common use of the term, a lyric is any fairly short poems consisting of the utterance by a single speaker, who expresses a state of mind or a process of perception, thought and feeling.。
英美文学术语
TERMS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE1.Allegory寓言；讽喻A narrative in which the characters and the setting stand for abstract qualities and ideas. The writer of an allegory is not primarily trying to make the characters and their actions realistic, but to make them representative of ideas or truths.2. Alliteration (头韵)The repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants or consonant clusters, in a group of words . Some-times the term is limited to the repetition of initial consonant sounds.3. Assonance（腹韵，半谐音）The repetition of similar vowel sounds , especially in poetry . Here is an example of assonance from John Keat s’s Ode on a Grecian Urn : “Thou foster ch i ld of s i lence and slow t i me .”4. Ballad民谣；叙事诗歌A story told in verse and usually meant to be sung .5. Blank Verse无韵诗，素体诗（不押韵的五音步诗行）Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.6. Byronic Hero拜伦的，拜伦风格的，冷笑而浪漫的The hero with the characteristic of Lord Byron or the hero in his poetry, who is contemptuous of and rebelling against conventional morality, or defying fate, and who is a mixture of good and evil, selflessness and sin, isolated, rebellious, passionate and self-reliant, etc.7. Characterization特性描述；（对书或戏剧中人物的）刻画，塑造The personality a character displays; also, the means by which a writer reveals that personality. Generally, a writer develops a character in one or more of the following ways:1)through the character’s actions;2)through the character’s thoughts and speeches;3)through a physical description of the character;4)through the opinions others have about the character;5)through a direct statement about the character telling what the writer thinks of him or her.8. Classicism古典主义，古典风格A movement or tendency in 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 . Classicism, with its concern for reason and universal themes, is traditionally opposed to Romanticism, which is concerned with emotions and personal themes .9. ClimaxThe point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative . The climax usually marks a story’s turning point.10. ComedyIn general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable armistice between the protagonist and society.11. Comedy of MannersA term most commonly used to designate the realistic, often satirical comedy. In the stricter sense of the term, the type is concerned with the manners and conventions of an artificial, highly sophisticated society. The fashions, manners and outlook on life of this social group are reflected. The characters are more likely to be types than individualized personalities. Plot, though ofteninvolving a clever handling of situation and intrigue, is less important than atmosphere, dialogue and satire, The dialogue is witty and finished, often brilliant. Satire is directed against the deficiencies of typical characters.12. Conceit (文学中)巧妙的比喻，别出心裁的对比A kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly different things.13. Consonance（谐辅音）The repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words . Sometimes the term refers to the repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words, as in this line from Thomas Gray’s “ Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard ”: “ And a ll the air a so l emn sti ll ness ho l ds . ”Sometimes the term is used for slant rhyme (or partial rhyme) in which initial and final consonants are the same but the vowels different : l itter/l etter , gree n/groa n .14. Couplet相连并押韵的两行诗，对句Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.15. Dramatic MonologueA poem in which there is an imaginary speaker, at some specific and critical moment, addressing an imaginary, silent but identifiable audience, thereby unintentionally revealing his or her essential personality or temperament. In Browning’s My Last Duchess,for example, he penetrates to the depth the psychology of his characters and through their own speeches, he analyzes and reveals the innermost secret of their lives.16. Heroic Couplet（两行相互押韵、每行分五音节的）英雄偶句诗An iambic pentameter couplet.17. Elegy悲歌;挽歌;挽诗A poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual.18. Epic叙事诗；史诗；史诗般的作品A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated.19. Fable寓言A story with a moral lesson, often employing animals who talk and act like human beings.20 The Graveyard SchoolA group of 18th-century poets, and among them are Thomas Gray, Robert Blair, Thomas Parnell, and Edward Young, who wrote on funeral subjects.21. Iambic Pentameter五音步抑扬格A poetic line consisting of five verse feet (penta-is from a Greek word meaning “five”), with each foot an iamb—that is, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Iambic pentameter is the most common verse line in English poetry.22. ImageryWords or phrases that create pictures, or images, in the reader’s mind .23. LyricA poem, usually a short one, that expresses a speaker’s personal thoughts or feelings. The elegy, ode, and sonnet are all forms of the lyric.24. Metaphysical PoetryThe poetry of John Donne and other seventeenth-century poets who wrote in a similar style. Metaphysical poetry is characterized by verbal wit and excess, ingenious structure, irregular meter, colloquial language , elaborate imagery , and a drawing together of dissimilar ideas .25. MeterA generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.26. Narrative PoemA poem that tells a story .One kind of narrative poem is the epic, a long poem that sets forth the heroic ideals of a particular society. Beowulf is an epic. The ballad is another kind of narrative poem.27. NarratorOne who narrates, or tells, a story. A story may be told by a first-person narrator, someone who is either a major or a minor character in the story. Or a story may be told by a third-person narrator, someone who is not in the story at all.28. NaturalismAn extreme form of realism. Naturalistic writers usually depict the sordid side of life and show characters who are severely limited by their environment or heredity, two forces beyond man’s control.29. NeoclassicismA revival in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of classical standards of order, balance, and harmony in literature. John Dryden and Alexander Pope were major exponents of the neoclassical school.30. OctiveAn eight-line poem or stanza. Usually the term octave refers to the first eight lines of an Italian sonnet. The remaining six lines form a sestet.31. OdeA complex and often lengthy lyric poem, written in a dignified formal style on some serious subject.32. ParadoxA statement that reveals a kind of truth, although it seems at first to be self-contradictory and untrue .33. Point of viewThe vantage point from which a narrative is told. There are two basic points of view: first-person and third person. In the first-person point of view, the story is told by one of the characters in his or her own words. In the third-person point of view, the narrator is not a character in the story. The narrator may be an omniscient, or “all-knowing” observer.34. PunThe use of a word or phrase to suggest two or more meanings at the same time. Puns are generally humorous.35. RealismThe 19th century literary movement that reacted to romanticism by insisting on a faithful, objective presentation of the details of everyday life.36. The RenaissanceThe period in Europe between the 14th century and the 17th century. During this period, the classical arts and learning were discovered again and widely studied, so the term originally indicates a revival of classical(Roman and Greek) arts and learning after the dark ages of Medieval obscurantism, it also marked the beginning of the bourgeois revolution.In the Renaissance period, scholars and educators called themselves humanists and began toemphasize the capacities of the human mind and they held their chief interest in man’s values and his environment and doings. So humanism became the keynote of the English Renaissance.37. RomanceAny imaginative literature that is set in an idealized world and that deals with heroic adventures and battles between good characters and villains or monsters. Originally, the term referred to a medieval tale dealing with the loves and adventures of kings , queens , knights , and ladies , and including unlikely or supernatural happenings . Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the best of the medieval romances.38. RomanticismRomanticism is a literary movement which came into being in England early in the latter half of the 18th century and prevailed in the first half of the nineteenth century . This literary trend began with the publication of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads(抒情歌谣集) and ended with Walter Scott’s death. It is a reaction against the classicism or Neoclassicism of the 18th century. Romantic writing emphasizes emotions and feelings instead of reason and logic. It also focuses on the life of common people and encourages an appreciation of nature instead of society. The subject matters of Romanticism can be listed: sensibility, love of nature, interest in the past ,mysticism , individualism , exotic pictures , strong-willed heroes , sometimes resort to symbolism39. SestetA six-line poem or stanza. Usually the term sestet refers to the last six lines of an Italian sonnet . The first eight lines of an Italian sonnet form an octave.40. SentimentalismThe middle of the 18th century in England sees the inception of a new literary current---that of sentimentalism, which came into being as a bitter discontent in social reality on the part of certain enlighteners who found the power of reason to be insufficient in dealing with social injustices, and therefore, appealed to sentiment as a means of achieving happiness and justice.The term is used in two senses in the study of literature. The first is overindulgence in emotion, especially the conscious effort to induce emotion in order to analyze or enjoy it and the failure to restrain or evaluate emotion through the exercise of the judgement. The second is optimistic overemphasis of the goodness of humanity. Sentimentalism is concerned with the development of primitivism. In the first sense given above, sentimentalism is found in the melancholy verse of the Graveyard School.41. SoliloquyIn drama, an extended speech delivered by a character alone onstage. The character reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings directly to the audience, as if thinking aloud.42. SonnetA fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in rhymed iambic pentameter.43. Stream of ConsciousnessA method of telling a story in which a writer lets the reader know every thought that enters a character’s mind. This method tries to imitate the way in which people actually think. Therefore , the character’s thoughts are presented in the order in which they occur , and this order is not necessarily logical . When the stream-of-consciousness technique is used, the story is always written from the first-person point of view.44. Spenserian StanzaA nine-line stanza with the following rhyme scheme: ababbcbcc. The first eight lines are written iniambic pentameter. The last line is written in iambic hexameter . The Spenserian Stanza was invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem The Fairie Queen.45. StyleAn author’s characteristic way of writing, determined by the choice of words, the arrangements of words in a sentence, and the relationship of sentences to one another. Style is the total qualities and characteristics that distinguish the writings of one writer from those of another.46. TragedyIn general, a literary work in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous end. Unlike comedy, tragedy depicts the actions of a central character who is usually dignified or heroic. Through a series of events, this main character, or tragic hero , is brought to a final downfall .47. ForeshadowingA device by means of which the author hints at something to follow.48. Understatement(轻描淡写的陈述)A figure of speech that consists of saying less than what one means, or of saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrants.49. University WitsA name given to a group of Elizabethan playwrights who had studied at the universities of Oxford or Cambridge. John Lyly and Thomas Lodge were at Oxford; Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe and Christopher Marlowe came from Cambridge.50. The Wessex NovelsThe Wessex Novels : novels by Hardy of describing the characters and environment of his native countryside. These novels have for their setting the agricultural region of the Southern counties of England. Hardy truthfully depicts the impoverishment and decay of small farmers who became hired fieldhands and roam the country in search of seasonal jobs. These laborers are mercilessly exploited by the rich landowners. The author is pained to see the decline of the idyllic life in rural England. This is one of the reasons for Hardy’s pessimistic tone throughout his novels. His pessimistic philosophy seems to show that mankind is subjected to human life. Determinism is a tendency in his writings. The major Wessex Novels include:1. Under the Greenwood Tree2. Far from the Madding Crowd3. The Return of the Native4. The Mayor of Casterbridge5. Tess of the D’Urbervilles6. Jude the Obscure。
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英国文学Alliteration:押头韵repetition of the initial sounds（不一定是首字母）Allegory:寓言a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.Allusion:典故a reference in a literary work to person, place etc. often to well-known characters or events. Archetype:原型Irony:反讽intended meaning is the opposite of what is statedBlack humor:黑色幽默Metaphor: 暗喻Ballad: 民谣about the folk logeEpic:史诗in poetry, refers to a long work dealing with the actions of gods and heroes.Romance: 罗曼史/骑士文学is a popular literary form in the medieval England./ChivalryEuphuism: 夸饰文体This kind of style consists of two distinct elements. The first is abundant use of balanced sentences, alliterations and other artificial prosodic means. The second element is the use of odd similes and comparisons.Spenserian stanza: It refers to a stanza of nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter. 斯宾塞诗节新诗体，每一节有9排，前8排是抑扬格五步格诗，第9排是抑扬格六步格诗。
The Faerie QueeneConceit:奇特的比喻is a far-fetched simile or metaphor, occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things. 不像的事物Sonnet: 十四行诗a lyric consisting of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme.Blank verse: 无韵体诗written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.Elegy 挽歌The Heroic Couplet:英雄对偶句Lyric:抒情诗is a short poem that expresses the poet’s thoughts and emotion or illustrates some life principle. often concerns love. A red, red Rose.Byronic Hero: refers to a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin.Stream of Consciousness:意识流the author tells the story through the freely flowing thoughts and associations of one of the characters. James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are two major advocates of this technique.Renaissance:文艺复兴14-15th, originated in Italy, encouraged the reformation of the Church and humanism. Humanism: 人文主义it is the essence of the Renaissance. It emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life.Metaphysical poetry:玄学派诗歌it is commonly used to name the work of the 17th-century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne. With the rebellious spirit, they tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. The diction is simple. John Donne, George Herbert.The Enlightenment Movement:启蒙运动18th century flourished in France. Enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. reason, rationality, equality and science and universal education. John Dryden, Alexander Pope.Neoclassicism:新古典主义17-18th centuries of classical standards of standards of order, balance, and harmony in literature. Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson.Sentimentalism:感伤主义18世纪60-80年代，came into being as a result of a bitter discontent on the part of certain enlighteners i n social reality. use of pathetic effects and attempts to arouse feeling by “pathetic” indulgence.The Graveyard School: 墓畔派whose poems are mostly devote to sentimental lamentations or meditation onlife, past and present, with death and graveyard as theme.Romanticism: 浪漫主义mid-18th century, strong protest against the bondage of neoclassicism. romanticism gave primary concern to passion, emotion, and natural beauty.Lake Poets:湖畔派诗人refers to such romantic poets as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey who lived in the Lake District.Critical Realism:批判现实主义•applied to the realistic fiction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.•criticize capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint but did not find a way to eradicate social evils. •concerned about the fate of common people and described what was faithful to reality.•Charles Dickens is the most important critical realist.Modernism: 现代主义began in the late 19th century and flourish until 1950. concentrate more on the private and subjunctive than on the public and objective, mainly concerned with the inner world of an individual.美国文学American Puritanism: 清教徒主义accept the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement.American Romanticism: 美国浪漫主义•subjectivity 主观性emphasis on individualism—personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodness •back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature•back to nature 回归自然Transcendentalism: 超验主义•Began in New England around 1830, spokesman was R. W. Eme rson, man’s capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach the traditional five senses, he can also learn spontaneously, out of his soul or instincts.•Four sources: Unitarianism, Romantic Idealism, Oriental mysticism, puritanism.Free Verse: 自由诗体has no regular rhythm or line length and depends on natural speech rhythms…American Realism: Actualities of everyday life, moral and social effects of writing. It concerns for common place and the low, offers an objective view. three dominant figures, Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James. Local Color: Speech and customs peculiar to one particular place, an indigenous and distinctive little world. Hamlin Garland, Willa Cather, and Sarah Orne Jewette are three representatives.American Naturalism: is evolved from realism when the author’s tome in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic.Imagism: 意象派•It was influenced by French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japanese literature ”haiku”.•An image is defined by Pound. 强调诗要具体，避免抽象，意向比喻要非常准确。