英国文学名词解释大全(整理版)

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英国文学-名词解释-【整理后】汇编

1.epic 史诗:a long narrative poem, grand in style, about heroes and heroic deeds, embodying heroicideals of a nation or race in the making. Beowulf is the English national epic that was passed from mouth to mouth and written down by many unknown hands.2.Conceit:a kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly different things. Aconceit usually provides the framework for an entire poem. An especially unusual and intellectual kind of conceit is the metaphysical conceit, used by certain 17th-century poets, such as John Donne..3.Epiphany(顿悟）: a sudden revelation of truth about life inspired by a seemingly trivial incident4.Metaphysical poetry:玄学诗派the poetry of John Donne and other 17th-century poets who wrotein a similar style. It is characterized by verbal wit and excess, ingenious structure, irregular meter, colloquial language, elaborate imagery, and a drawing together of dissimilar ideas .5.Stream of consciousness意识流: a kind of writing technique in which a character's perceptions, thoughts, andmemories are presented in an apparently random form, without regard for logical sequence, chronology, or syntax.Often such writing makes no distinction between various levels of reality--such as dreams, memories, imaginative thoughts or real sensory perception.6.heroic couplet 英雄双韵体two successive lines of rhymed poetry in iambic pentameter. Geoffrey Chaucer’s masterpiece The Canterbury Tale was written in heroic couplet.7.ballad meter 民谣体traditionally a four-line stanza containing alternating four-stress and three-stress lines, usually with a refrain and the rhyme scheme of abcb. Robert Burns’ “A Red, Red Rose” is a great love ballad.8.9.sonnet 十四行诗a fixed form consisting of fourteen lines of 5-foot iambic verse. It first flourished in Italy in the 14thcentury. William Shakespeare was a great English sonnet writer famous for his 154 sonnets.10.iambic pentameter 五步抑扬格the basic line in English verse, with five feet in a line, usually an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable. It was probably introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer and certainly established by him in The Canterbury Tales.11.image 意象a concrete representation of an object or sensory experience. Typically, such a representation helpsevoke the feelings associated with the object or experience itself. Many images are conveyed by figurative language. An image may be visual, olfactory, tactile, auditory, gustatory, abstract and kinaesthetic. The rose in Robert Bur ns’ poem “A Red, Red Rose” is a beautiful image.12.“Dramatic monologue”戏剧独白that is a lyric poem which reveals “ a soul in action” through the conversation of one character in a dramatic situation. T he character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic monent in the speaker’s life.13.blank verse 无韵诗，素体诗unrhymed iambic pentameter, the most widely used of English verse forms and usually used in English dramatic and epic poetry. Willi am Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is written in blank verse.14.Sonnet is a verse form of fourteen lines, in English characteristically in iambic pentameter and most often in one ofthe two rhyme schemes: the Italian(or Petrarchan) or Shakespearean15.essay 散文a composition, usually in prose, which may be of only a few hundred words or of book length andwhich discusses, formally or informally, a topic or a variety of topics. It is one of the most flexible and adaptable of all literary forms. Francis Bacon is a great essayist; his “Of Studies” is a model of good essay.16.English Romanticism 英国浪漫主义a literary movement that aimed at free expression of the writer’s ideas and feelings and flourished inthe early 19th century England. A great representative of this movement is Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author of “Ode to the West Wind”.17.18.Naturalism自然主义: A literary movement seeking to depict life as accurately as possible, without artificialdistortions of emotion, idealism, and literary convention. The school of thought is a product of post-Darwinian biology in the nineteenth century.19.Sentimentalism感伤主义：It is a literal movement in the middle of the 18th century in England which concentrateson the distressed of the poor unfortunate and virtuous people and demonstrates that effusive emotion was evidence of kindness and goodness.20.21.Bildungsroman: a novel that traces the initiation, development, and education of a young person. Examples areDickens’s David Copperfield and James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.22.ke poets 湖畔诗人the three romantic poets who lived in the Lake District of England and wrote poems about nature.William Wordsworth was the most famous of the lake poets; he wrote many great nature poems, including “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”.24.25.poet laureate 桂冠诗人 A poet honored for his artistic achievement or selected as mostrepresentative of his country or era; in England, a court official appointed by the sovereign, whose original duties included the composition of odes in honor of the sovereign’s birthday and in celebration of state occasions of importance. William Wordsworth became poet laureate in 1843.26.Realism现实主义: An elastic and ambiguous term with two meanings. (1) First, it refers generally to any artistic orliterary portrayal of life in a faithful, accurate manner, unclouded by false ideals, literary conventions, or misplaced aesthetic glorification and beautification of the world. It is a theory or tendency in writing to depict events in human life in a matter-of-fact, straightforward manner.27.Allegory is a tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas ormoral qualities. Thus, an allegory is a story with two meaning, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.28.Byronic hero is a character-type found in Byron’s narrative Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. He is aboldly defiant but bitterly self-tormenting outcast, proudly contemptuous of social norms but suffering for some unnamed sin. Emily Bronte’s Heath cliff is a later example.29.30.启蒙运动:The 18th century marked the beginning of an intellectual movement in Europe, known as theEnlightenment, 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. They attempt to place all branches of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual needs and requirements of people.31.English Renaissance 英国文艺复兴the literary flowering of England in the late 16th century and early 17th century, with humanism as its keynote. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is considered the summit of this renaissance.。

英国文学-名词解释-

英国文学-名词解释-学习好资料欢迎下载1.epic 史诗:a long narrative poem, grand in style, about heroes and heroic deeds, embodying heroicideals of a nation or race in the making. Beowulf is the English national epic that was passed from mouth to mouth and written down by many unknown hands.2.Conceit:a kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly different things. Aconceit usually provides the framework for an entire poem. An especially unusual and intellectual kind of conceit is the metaphysical conceit, used by certain 17th-century poets, such as John Donne..3.Epiphany(顿悟）: a sudden revelation of truth about life inspired by a seemingly trivial incident4.Metaphysical poetry:玄学诗派the poetry of John Donne and other 17th-century poets who wrotein a similar style. It is characterized by verbal wit and excess, ingenious structure, irregular meter, colloquial language, elaborate imagery, and a drawing together of dissimilar ideas .5.Stream of consciousness意识流: a kind of writing technique in which a character's perceptions, thoughts, andmemories are presented in an apparently random form, without regard for logical sequence, chronology, or syntax.Often such writing makes no distinction between various levels of reality--such as dreams, memories, imaginative thoughts or real sensory perception.6.heroic couplet 英雄双韵体two successive lines of rhymed poetry in iambic pentameter.Geoffrey Chaucer’s masterpiece The Canterbury Tale was written in heroic couplet.7.ballad meter 民谣体traditionally a four-line stanza containing alternating four-stress and three-stress lines, usually with a refrain and the rhyme scheme of abcb. Robert Burns’ “A Red, Red Rose” is a great love ballad.8.sonnet 十四行诗a fixed form consisting of fourteen lines of 5-foot iambic verse. It first flourished in Italy in the 14thcentury. William Shakespeare was a great English sonnet writer famous for his 154 sonnets.9.iambic pentameter 五步抑扬格the basic line in English verse, with five feet in a line, usually an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable. It was probably introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer and certainly established by him in The Canterbury Tales.10.image 意象a concrete representation of an object or sensory experience. Typically, such a representation helpsevoke the feelings associated with the object or experience itself. Many images are conveyed by figurative language. An image may be visual, olfactory, tactile, auditory, gustatory, abstract and kinaesth etic. The rose in Robert Burns’ poem “A Red, Red Rose” is a beautiful image.11.“Dramatic monologue”戏剧独白that is a lyric poem which reveals “ a soul in action” through the conversation of one character in a dramatic situation. T he character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic monent in the speaker’s life.12.blank verse 无韵诗，素体诗unrhymed iambic pentameter, the most widely used of English verse forms and usually used in English dramatic and epic poetry. William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is written in blank verse.13.Sonnet is a verse form of fourteen lines, in English characteristically in iambic pentameter and most often in one of the two rhyme schemes: the Italian(or Petrarchan) or Shakespearean14.essay 散文a composition, usually in prose, which may be of only a few hundred words or of book length andwhich discusses, formally or informally, a topic or a variety of topics. It is one of the most flexible and adaptable of all literary forms. Francis Bacon is a great essayist; his “Of Studies” is a model of good essay.15.English Romanticism 英国浪漫主义a literary movement that aimed at free expres sion of the writer’s ideas and feelings and flourished in学习好资料欢迎下载the early 19th century England. A great representative of this movement is Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author of “Ode to the West Wind”.16.Naturalism自然主义: A literary movement seeking to depict life as accurately as possible, without artificial distortions of emotion, idealism, and literary convention. The school of thought is a product of post-Darwinian biology in the nineteenth century.17.Sentimentalism感伤主义：It is a literal movement in the middle of the 18th century in England which concentrateson the distressed of the poor unfortunate and virtuous people and demonstrates that effusive emotion was evidence of kindness and goodness.18.Bildungsroman: a novel that traces the initiation, development, and education of a young person. Examples are Dickens’s David Copperfield and James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man./doc/b03339706.html,ke poets 湖畔诗人the three romantic poets who lived in the Lake District of England and wrote poems about nature.William Wordsworth was the most famous of the lake poets; he wrote many great nature poems, including “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”.20.poet laureate 桂冠诗人A poet honored for his artistic achievement or selected as mostrepresentative of his country or era; in England, a court official appointed by the sovereign, whose original duties included the composition of odes in honor of the sovereign’s birthday and in celebration of state occasions of importance. William Wordsworth became poet laureate in 1843. 21.Realism现实主义: An elastic and ambiguous term with two meanings. (1) First, it refers generally to any artistic orliterary portrayal of life in a faithful, accurate manner, unclouded by false ideals, literary conventions, or misplaced aesthetic glorification and beautification of the world. It is a theory or tendency in writing to depict events in human life in a matter-of-fact, straightforward manner.22.Allegory is a tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas ormoral qualities. Thus, an allegory is a story with two meaning,a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.23.Byronic hero is a character-type found in Byron’s narrative Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. He is aboldly defiant but bitterly self-tormenting outcast, proudly contemptuous of social norms but suffering for some unnamed sin. Emily Bronte’s Heath cliff is a late r example.24.启蒙运动:The 18th century marked the beginning of an intellectual movement in Europe, known as theEnlightenment, 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. They attempt to place all branches of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual needs and requirements of people.25.English Renaissance 英国文艺复兴the literary flowering of England in the late 16th century and early 17th century, with humanism as its keynote. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is considered the summit of this renaissance.。

英国文学名词解释(整理版)

Allegory:A tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. An allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.Alliteration:The repetition of the initial consonant sounds in poetry.Antagonist:A person or force opposing the protagonist in a narrative; a rival of the hero or heroine. Antithesis:(a figure of speech) The balancing of two contrasting ideas, words phrases, or sentences. An antithesis is often expressed in a balanced sentence, that is, a sentence in which identical or similar grammatical structure is used to express contrasting ideas. Aside:In drama, lines spoken by a character in an undertone or directly to the audience. An aside is meant to be heard by the other characters onstage.Ballad:A story told in verse and usually meant to be sung. In many countries, the folk ballad was one of the earliest forms of literature. Folk ballads have no known authors. They were transmitted orally from generation to generation and were not set down in writing until centuries after they were first sung. The subject matter of folk ballads stems from the everyday life of the common people. Devices commonly used in ballads are the refrain, incremental repetition, and code language. A later form of ballad is the literary ballad, which imitates the style of the folk ballad.Biography:A detailed account of a person’s life written by another person.Blank verse:Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.Classicism: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.Climax:T he point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a gogotory’s turning point. The action leading to the climax and the simultaneous increase of 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. Comedy:in general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable armistice between the protagonist and society.Conceit:A kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly different things.A conceit may be a brief metaphor, but it usually provides the framework for an entirepoem. An especially unusual and intellectual kind of conceit is the metaphysical conceit.Conflict:A struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem. Usually the events of the story are all related to the conflict, and the conflict is resolved in some way by the story’s end.Couplet:Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhymed. A heroic couplet is an iambic pentameter couplet.Critical Realism:The critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the forties 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.Dramatic monologue:A kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in the poem. The occasion is usually a crucial one in the speaker’s personality as well as the incident that is the subject of the poem.Elegy: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.Enlightenment:With the advent of the 18th century, in England, as in other European countries, there sprang into life a public movement known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment on the whole, was an expression of struggle of the then progressive class of bourgeois against feudalism. The ego goes inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. They attempted to place all branches of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual deeds and requirements of the people. Epic:A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of 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. Essay:A piece of prose writing, usually short, that deals with a subject in a limited way and expresses a particular point or view.Free Verse:Verse that has either no metrical pattern or an irregular pattern.Hyperbole:A figure of speech using exaggeration, or overstatement, for special effect.Iamb抑扬格:It is the most commonly used foot in English poetry, in which an unstressed syllable comes first, followed by a stressed syllable.Iambic pentameter:A poetic line consisting of five verse feet, with each foot an iamb—that is, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Iambic pentameter is the most common verse line in English poetry.Irony:A contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens.Three kinds of irony are(1) verbal irony, in which a writer or speaker says one thing and means something entirely different;(2) dramatic irony, in which a reader or an audience perceives something that a character in the story or play does not know;(3) irony of situation, in which the writer shows a discrepancy between the expected results of some action or situation and its actual results.Lyric:A poem, usually a short one, that expre sses a speaker’s personal thoughts or feelings. The elegy, ode, and sonnet are all forms of the lyric.Morality play:An outgrowth of miracle plays. Morality plays were popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. In them, virtues and vices were personified.Myth:A story, often about immortals and sometimes connected with religious rituals, that is intended to give meaning to the mysteries of the world. Myths make it possible for people to understand and deal with things that they cannot control and often cannot see. A body of related myths that is accepted by a people is known as its mythology. A mythology tells a people what it is most concerned about.Narrator:One who narrates, or tells, a story. 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. 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.Naturalism:An extreme form of realism. Naturalistic writers usually depict the sordid side of life and show characters who are severely, if not hopelessly, limited by their environment or heredity.Neoclassicism:A revival in the 17th agogo of order, balance, and harmony in literature.Ode:A complex and often lengthy lyric poem, written in a dignified formal style on some lofty or serious subject. Odes are often written for a special occasion, to honor a person or a season or to commemorate an event.Pathos:The quality in a work of literature or art that arouses the reader’s feelings of pity, sorrow, or compassion for a character. The term is usually used to refer to situations inwhich innocent characters suffer through no fault of their own.Poetry:The most distinctive characteristic of poetry is form and music. Poetry is concerned with not only what is said but how it is said. Poetry evokes emotions rather than express facts. Poetry means having a poetic experience. Imagination is also an essential quality of poetry. Poetry often leads us to new perceptions, new feelings and experiences of which we have not previously been aware.Protagonist:The central character of a drama, novel, short story, or narrative poem. The protagonist is the character on whom the action centers and with whom the reader sympathizes most. Usually the protagonist strives against an opposing force, or antagonist , to accomplish something.Renaissance:The term originally indicated a revival of classical (Greek and Roman) arts and sciences after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism.Romance:Any imagination literature that is set in an idealized world and that deals with a heroic adventures and battles between good characters and villains or monsters.Satire:A kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weaknesses and wrongdoings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general. The aim of satirists is to set a moral standard for society, and they attempt to persuade the reader to see their point of view through the force of laughter.Song:A short lyric poem with distinct musical qualities, normally written to be set to music. In expresses a simple but intense emotion.Sonnet:A fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in rhymed iambic pentameter. A sonnet generally expresses a single theme or idea.Spenserian stanza:A nine-line stanza with the following rhyme scheme: ababbabcc. The first eight lines are written in iambic pentameter. The ninth line is written in iambic hexameter and is called an alexandrine.Stanza: It’s a structural division of a poem, consisting of a series of verse lines which usually comprise a recurring pattern of meter and thyme.Canto:A section or division of a long poem. The cantos can be a great lyric/poem Stream of consciousness: “Stream-of-Consciousness” or “interior monologue”, is one of the modern literary techniques. It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thought s, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them.Wit: A brilliance and quickness of perception combined with a cleverness of expression. In the 18th century, wit and nature were related-nature provided the rules of the universe; wit allowed these rules to be interpreted and expressed.。

(完整版)英国文学名词解释

①Beowulf: The national heroic epic of the English people. It has over 3,000 lines. It describes the battles between the two monsters and Beowulf, who won the battle finally and dead for the fatal wound. The poem ends with the funeral of the hero. The most striking feature in its poetical form is the use if alliteration. Other features of it are the use of metaphors(暗喻) and of understatements(含蓄).②Alliteration: In alliterative verse, certain accented(重音) words in a line begin with the same consonant sound(辅音). There are generally 4accents in a line, 3 of which show alliteration, as can be seen from the above quotation.③Romance:The most prevailing(流行的) kind of literature in feudal England was the Romance. It was a long composition, sometimes in verse(诗篇), sometimes in prose(散文), describing the life and adventures of a noble hero, usually a knight, as riding forth to seek adventures, taking part in tournament(竞赛), or fighting for his lord in battle and the swearing of oaths.④Epic:An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significantly to a culture or nation. The first epics are known as primacy, or original epics.⑤Ballad: The most important department of English folk literature is the ballad which is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas(诗节), with the second and fourth lines rhymed. The subjects of ballads are various in kind, as the struggle of young lovers against their feudal-minded families, the conflict between love and wealth, the cruelty of jealousy, the criticism of the civil war, and the matters and class struggle. The paramount(卓越的) important ballad is Robin Hood(《绿林好汉》).⑥Geoffrey Chaucer杰弗里▪乔叟: He was an English author, poet, philosopher and diplomat. He is the founder of English poetry. He obtained a good knowledge of Latin, French and Italian. His best remembered narrative is the Canterbury Tales(《坎特伯雷故事集》), which the Prologue(序言) supplies a miniature(缩影) of the English society of Chaucer’s time. That is why Chaucer has been called “the founder of English realism”. Chaucer affirms men and women’s right to pursue their happiness on earth and opposes(反对) the dogma of asceticism(禁欲主义) preached(鼓吹) by the church. As a forerunner of humanism, he praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. Chaucer’s contribution to English poetry lies chiefly in the fact that he introduced from France the rhymed stanza of various types, especially the rhymed couplet of 5 accents in iambic(抑扬格) meter(the “heroic couplet”) to English poetry, instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.⑦【William Langland威廉▪朗兰: Piers the Plowman《农夫皮尔斯》】The English Bible:The first complete English Bible was translated by John Wycliffe(约翰▪威克里夫). The Authorized Version is King James Bible made in 1611. The result is a monument of English language and English literature.Renaissance:Renaissance or the birth of letters is an intellectual movement. Its two features are a thirsting curiosity for the classical literature and the keen interest in the activities of humanity. Humanism is the key-note of the Renaissance.William Caxton威廉▪卡克斯顿: He is the first English printer and invented in England the profession of publisher.Thomas More托马斯▪莫尔:The greatest of the English humanists was Thomas More, the author of Utopia《乌托邦》. He is also one of such “giants”(巨匠) of the Renaissance. He distinguished himself as a learned scholar, a master of Latin, a witty talker, a lover of music, an honest statesman , and a man of noble character, modest but steadfast(坚定的), to his convictions. He was a far-sighted thinker, aspired for a totally new society with happy, classless, and free from poverty and exploitation. He was one of the forerunners of modern socialist thought.Utopia:It is More’s masterpiece, written in the form of a conservation between More and Hythloday, a returned voyager. It is divided into two books. The first book contains a long discussion on the social conditions of England. In the second book is described in detail an ideal communist society, Utopia. The name “Utopia” comes from Greek words meaning “no place” and was adopted by More as the name of his ideal commonwealth.Philip Sidney菲利普▪锡德尼: He is well-known as a poet and critic of poetry. His collection of love sonnets, Astrophel and Stella《爱星者与星》, was published in 1591.Edmund Spenser埃德蒙▪斯宾塞(莎翁之前最杰出的英国诗人)：The poet’s poet of the period was ES who was buried beside Chaucer in Westminster Abbey. ES has held his position as a model of poetical art among the Renaissance English poets, and his influence can be traced in the works of Milton, Shelley, and Keats. ES is the first master to make that language the natural music of his poetic effusions(感情的流露). His sonnets in Amoretti, together with Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella and Shakespeare’s sonnets ,are the most famous sonnet sequences of the Elizabeth Age.【In 1579 he wrote The Shepherd’s Calendar《牧人日记》which marked the budding(萌芽) of the Renaissance flower in the northern island of England. The faerie Queen 《仙后》is his greatest work which was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.】Francis Bacon: He is the founder of English materialist philosophy and the founder of modern science in England. His New Instrument is called the Inductive Method of reasoning. He is also the first English essayist. To give a few, “Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark..”“Studies serve for delight.”“Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing anexact man.”Drama: The Miracle Play圣迹剧The Morality Play道德剧寓意剧The Interlude幕间节目Christopher Marlowe克里斯托弗·马洛: The most gifted of the “university wits”was Christopher Marlowe. His best work include 3 of his plays, Tamburlaine《帖木儿大帝》(1587), The Jew of Malta《马耳岛的犹太人》(1592), and Doctor Faustus《浮士德博士》(1588). He was the greatest of the pioneers of English drama. His work paved the way for the plays of the greatest English dramatist——Shakespeare——whose achievements were the monument of the English Renaissance. 【His plays show the spirit of the rising bourgeoisie, its eager curiosity for knowledge, its towering pride, its insatiable(不知足的) appetite for power won by military, might, knowledge, or gold. The theme of his plays is the praise of individuality freed from the restraints of medieval dogmas and law, and the conviction of the boundless possibility of human efforts in conquering the universe. The heroes in his plays are merely individualists, their individualistic ambition often brings ruin to the world and sometimes to themselves.】William Shakespeare: Shakespeare is one of the founders of realism in world literature. His dramatic creation often used the method of adaptation. Shakespeare long experience with the stage and his intimate knowledge of dramatic art thus acquired make him a master hand for playwriting. Shakespeare was skilled in many poetic forms: the song, the sonnet, the couplet, and the dramatic blank verse. He was especially at home with the blank verse. Shakespeare was a great master of the English language. Shakespeare has been universally acknowledged to be the summit of the English Renaissance, and one of the greatest writers over the world.①The great comedies:A Midsummer Might’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It,Twelfth Night.②The great tragedies:Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth.The Merchant of V enice:威尼斯富商安东尼奥Antonio为了成全好友巴萨尼奥Bassanio的婚事，向犹太人高利贷者夏洛克Shylock借债。

英国文学名词术语解释(已整理版)

Iambic pentameter is a commonly used type of metrical line in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm that the words establish in that line, which is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet". The word "iambic" refers to the type of foot that is used, known as the iamb, which in English is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The word "pentameter" indicates that a line has five of these "feet".Iambic rhythms come relatively naturally in English. Iambic pentameter is the most common meter in English poetry; it is used in many of the major English poetic forms, including blank verse, the heroic couplet, and some of the traditional rhymed stanza forms. William Shakespeare used iambic pentameter in his plays and sonnets.Allegory Allegories are typically used as literary devices or rhetorical devices that convey hidden meanings through symbolic figures, actions, imagery, and/or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wishes to convey.Epic(史诗)An epic is a long oral narrative poem that operates on a grand scale and deals with legendary or historical events of national or universal significance .Most epics deal with the exploits of a single individual and also interlace the main narrative with myths, legends, folk tales and past events; there is a composite effect, the entire culture of a country cohering in the overall experience of the poem . Epic poems are not 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.简史P39Blank verse is poetry written in regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always iambic pentameters.[1] It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century"[2] and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."[3]Christopher Marlowe was the first English author to make full use of the potential of blank verse. The major achievements in English blank verse were made by William Shakespeare. Blank verse, of varying degrees of regularity, has been used quite frequently throughout the 20th century in original verse and in translations of narrative verse.Ode(颂歌) Long, often elaborate formal lyric poem of varying line lengths dealing with a subject matter and treating it reverently. It aims at glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally. Conventionally, many odes are written or dedicated to a specifie subject. For instance,Ode to the West Wind is about the winds that bring change of season in England. Ode to the Nightingale is about the nightingale that lures the poet temporarily away from his great misery. The earliest English odes include the Epithalamion and the Prothalamion,or marriage hymns by poet Edmund Spenser.Metaphysical poetry（玄学诗） a derogatory term invented by John Dryden(1631-1700 ) and later adopted by Samuel Johnson(1709-1784) describing a school of highly intellectual poetry marked by bold and ingenious conceits,incongruous imagery,complexity of thought,frequent use of paradox,and often by deliberate harshness or rigidity of expression.The main themes of metaphysical poets are love,death,and religion.According to them,all things in the universe, no matter how dissimilar they are to each other,are closely unified in God.The chief representative of this school was John Donne.Byronic belonging to or derived from Lord Byron(1788-1824)or his works. The Byronic hero is a character-type found in his celebrated narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage(1812-18),his verse drama Manfred(1817),and other works:he is a boldly defiant butbitterly self –tormenting outcast,proudly contemptuous of social norms but suffering for some unnamed sin. Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights(1847)is a later example.Heroic couplet a rhymed pair of iambic pentameter lines:Let Observation with extensive ViewSurvey Mankind, from China to Peru (Johnson)Named from its use by Dryden and others in the heroic drama of the late 17th century,the heroic couplet had been established much earlier by Chaucer as a major English verse-form for narrative and other kinds of non-dramatic portry: it dominated English poetry of the 18th century,notably in the couplets of Pope,before declining in importance in the early 19th century.Soliloquy a dramatic speech uttered by one character speaking aloud while alone on the stage (or while under the impression of being alone).The soliloquist thus reveals his or her inner thoughts and feelings to the audience,either in supposed self-communion or in a consciously direct address. Soliloquies often appear in plays from the age of Shakespeare, notably in his Hamlet and Macbeth. A poem supposedly uttered by a solitary speaker,like Robert Browning’s‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister’(1842),may also be called a soliloquy. Soliloquy is a form of monologue,but a monologue is not a soliloquy if (as in the dramatic monologue) the speaker is not alone.简史P39 Sonnet a lyric poem comprising 14 rhyming lines of equal length:iambic pentameters in English,alexandrines in French,hendecasyllables in ltalian. The rhyme schemes of the sonnet follow two basic patterns.①The Italian sonnet②The English sonnetSpenserian stanza （宾塞诗体）an English poetic stanza of nine iambic lines, the first eight being pentameters while the ninth is a longer line known either as an iambic hexameter or as an alexandrine.The rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc. The stanza is named after Edmund Spenser,who invented it------probably on the basis of the ottava rima stanza-----for his long allegorical romance The Faerie Queene (1590-6). It was revived successfully by the younger English Romantic poets of the early 19th century: Byron used it for Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage(1812,1816), Keats for‘The Eve of St Agnes’(1820),and Shelley for The Revolt of Islam (1818)and Adonais (1821).Lake poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey became known as the Lake Poets, because they lived in the Lake District in the northwestern part of England. According to the critics, such as, Francis Jeffrey, Thomas De Quincey, the Lake Poets shared only friendship and brief periods of collaboration, not similar philosophies or poetic styles.Wordsworth used his imaginative powers to idealize nature, Coleridge explored the philosophical aspects of poetry,Southey's Romantic efforts centered on travel and adventure.Stream of Consciousness(意识流)Stream of Consciousness(意识流) ：Stream of consciousness, which presents the thoughts of a character in the random, seemingly unorganized fashion in which the thinking process occurs, has the following characteristics. First, it reveals the action or plot through the mental processes of the characters rather than through the commentary of an omniscient author. Second, character development is achieved through revelation of extremely personal and often typical thought processes rather than through the creation of typical characters in typical circumstances. Third, the action of the plot seldom corresponds to real, chronological time, but moves back and forth through present time to memories of past events and drams of the future. Fourth, it replaces narration, description, and commentary with dramatic interior monologue and free association.Critical Realism (批判现实主义) Critical realism is one of the literary genres thatflourished mainly in the 19th century. It reveals the corrupting influence of the rule of cash upon human nature. Here lies the essentially democratic and humanistic character of critical realism. The English critical realists of the 19th century not only gave a satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the ruling classes, but also showed profound sympathy for the common people. In their best works, they used humor and satire to contrast the greed and hypocrisy of the upper classes with the honesty and good-heartedness of the obscure “simple people” of the lower classes. Humorous scenes set off the actions of the positive characters, and the humor is often tinged with a lyricism which serves to stress the fine qualities of such characters. At the same time,bitter satire and grotesque is used to expose the seamy side of the bourgeois society. The critical realists, however, did not find a way to eradicate the social evils they knew so well. They did not realize the necessity of changing the bourgeois society through conscious human effort. Their works do not point toward revolution but rather evolution or reformism. They often start with a powerful exposure of the ugliness of the bourgeois world in their works, but their novels usually have happy endings or an impotent compromise at the end. Here are the strength and weakness of critical realism.Classicism（古典主义）: A movement or tendency in art, music, and literature to retain the characteristics found in work originating in classical Greece and Rome. It differs from Romanticism in that while Romanticism dwells on the emotional impact of a work, classicism concerns itself with form and discipline.Romanticism(浪漫主义) The term refers to the literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and early 19th century. Romanticism rejected the earlier philosophy of the Enlightenment, which stressed that logic and reason were the best response humans had in the face of cruelty, stupidity, superstition, and barbarism. Instead ,the Romantics asserted that reliance upon emotion and natural passions provided a valid and powerful means of knowing and a reliable guide to ethics and living.The Romantic movement typically asserts the unique nature of the individual, the privileged status of imagination and fancy, the value of spontaneity over “artifice”and “convention”, the human need for emotional outlets, the rejection of civilized corruption, and a desire to return to natural primitivism and escape the spiritual destruction of urban life Their writings are often set in rural, or Gothic settings and they show an obsessive concern with “innocent”characters----children, young lovers, and animals. The major Romantic poets included William Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats , Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Gordon Byron.Aestheticism( 美学主义) The basic theory of the Aesthetic movement----“art for art’s sake”----was set forth by a French poet, Theophile Gautier. The first Englishman who wrote about the theory of aestheticism was Walter Pater, the most important critical writer of the late 19th century. The chief representative of the movement in England was Oscar Wilde,with his Picture of Dorian Gray. Aestheticism places art above life, and holds that life should imitate art, not art imitate life. According to the aesthetes, all artistic creation is absolutely subjective as opposed to objective. Art should be free from any influence of egoism. Only when art is for art’s sake,can it be immortal They believed that art should be unconcerned with controversial issues, such as politics and morality, and that it should be restricted to contributing beauty in a highly polished style. This was one of the reactions against the materialism and commercialism of the Victorian industrial era, as well as a reaction against the Victorian convention of art for morality’s sake, or art for money’s sake.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 itsartistic 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 styles 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. Their approach was thoroughly professional. Their works, mostly refined and 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 modem 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.Naturalism（自然主义）: it first appeared in France, there naturalists including Zola turned especially to “slum life”, in England flourished in the 2nd half of 19th century; naturalists argued that literature reflect life, be “true to life”, writer must reproduce in his writings life exactly as it is, (including all details without any selection), theory of “a slice of life”; However, a fallacy, for impossible to include all the details in real life; only give the appearance of life but not its essence. In England, two outstanding writers in the last decades: George Gissing, George Moore.Neo-Romanticism（新浪漫主义）: it appeared at the end of 19th century and represented by Robert Louis Stevenson; it protests against the ugly social reality of their day but taking no positive steps about it，in a sense another form of escapism; dissatisfied with the contemporary reality, but at best a mild dissatisfaction; tried to find interest or enjoyment out from sheer imagination and fancy by creating exciting events and romantic characters that can hardly exist in reality，indulge in the description of exciting adventures in distant lands to deal with the heroic, to lay emphasis on the complexity and sensationalism of the material, Treasure Island, the representative in this school.Modernism（现代主义）: Around the two world wars, many writers and artists began to suspect and be discontent with the capitalism. They tried to find new ways to express their understanding of the world. It was a movement of experiments in techniques in writing. It flourished in the 20s and 30s in English literature.They turned their interest to describing what was happening in the minds of their characters. Because of their emphasis on the psychological activities of the characters, their writings are also called psychological novels. The Representatives are W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot,D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Foster, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.。

英国文学所有的名词解释

Renaissance: The period in European history that began at late 14th century in Italy through 15th century and 16th century，Following Middle Ages;It is the dividing line between the Middle Ages and the Modern Ages.European culture reached eminence; came to England in 16th century Wars of Roses (royal power, noble houses of York and Lancaster)Establishment of Tudor dynasty (1485-1603)Renaissance humanism:It is an approach in study, philosophy, or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. It is a philosophy that places faith in the dignity of humankind and rejects the medieval perception of the individual as a weak, fallen creature.FeaturesNew learning：Greek knowledge, printing; cultivated Renaissance aristocracy, “The Courtier”New religion: Martin Luther challenging Roman Catholic church, direct transaction with God New world: Columbus; economic exploitationNew cosmos: Copernicus, the center being the sun, not the earth; Descartes (Give me extension and motion, and I will construct the universe); EnlightenmentWomen of the Renaissance (Margaret L. King)Elizabethan Age This is a period of the flowering time of English literature.University Wits: A group of people wrote for the stage of the time and survive by writing skills Church and theatres: morality plays; attacks on theatres by church (breeding grounds for infection)Elements of Drama:Protagonists:Antagonists,Exposition,Suspense,Rising Action,Climax,Falling action:Aside独白: inaudible to other charactersTragedy Representations of serious actions which eventuate in a disastrous conclusion for the protagonist (the chief character)Comedy It is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse and to interest.Sonnet It is one of several forms of lyric poetry originating in Europe. A fourteen-line poem usually composed in iambic pentameter, employing one of several rhyme schemes. In Shakespeare's sonnets, the rhyme pattern is abab cdcd efef gg, with the final couplet used to summarize the previous 12 lines or present a surprise ending.An iamb is a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable and one unstressed syllable — as in dah-DUM, dah-DUM dah-DUM dah-DUM dah-DUM.five of these in each line, which makes it a pentameter.Lyric poetry It is a form of poetry with rhyming schemes that express personal and emotional feelings.Soliloquy A monologue in a drama used to give the audience information and to develop the speaker's character. It is typically a projection of the speaker's innermost thoughts. Usually delivered while the speaker is alone on stage, a soliloquy is intended to present an illusion of unspoken reflection.Rhyme: This term generally refers to a poem in which words sound identical or very similar and appear in parallel positions in two or more lines.Alliteration: A poetic device where the first consonant sounds or any vowel sounds in words or syllables are repeated.Meter: The repetition of sound patterns creates a rhythm in Poetry. The patterns are based on the number of syllables and the presence and absence of accents. The unit of rhythm in a line is calleda Foot. Types of meter are classified according to the number of feet in a line.Foot: The smallest unit of rhythm in a line of Poetry.ImageryImaginary: uses of language in a literary work that evoke sense-impressions by reference to concrete objects, scenes, actions, or states.Appeal to sensesMetaphor: one idea is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two.Imaginary identity rather than directly stated as a comparison. He is a pig. He is like a pig. (simile)Ode▪Elaborately formal lyric poem▪Address to a person or entity▪Serious and elevated in tone▪Greek choral odes: praise of athletes▪Horace’s privately reflective odes in Latin▪Horatian odes: same form of stanza is repeated regularly▪Keats: “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, “Ode to a NightingaleHeroic Couplet: A rhyming couplet written in iambic pentameter (a Verse with five iambic feet). Stanza:A stanza consists of a grouping of lines, set off by a space that usually has a set pattern of meter and rhyme.The Middle Ages: a period of enormous historical, social, and linguistic changeThe Protestant Reformation: It is a movement which emphasis on the authority of scripture and salvation by faith alone (Henry VIII’s insistence on divorcing his wife, Catherine of Aragon, against the wishes of the Pope)Restoration It refers to the restoration of Charles II to his realms across the British Empire.1660-1785Epic It is a long narrative poem about the adventures of a hero of great historic or legendary importance. Epics are typically written in a classical style of grand simplicity with elaborate metaphors and allusions that enhance the symbolic importance of a hero's adventures.Paradox悖论It is a statement that appears illogical or contradictory at first, but may actually point to an underlying truth.Hyperbole It is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech.Valediction告别辞It is a statement made as a farewell.Novel It is a long fictional prose work.Picaresque novel It is a series of loosely strung episodes about an adventurer or a lovable rogue. Novel of sentiment It is a moral tale of romance and tears.Novel of manners: witty society tales.Tone It is the author’s implicit attitudes toward people.Irony It is the effect of language in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is stated. It reveals reality different from what it appears to be.Symbol：Anything that stands for something else beyond it—an idea conventionally associated with it. Evocative image; concrete object with further significance; differing frommetaphor in that its application is left open as an unstated suggestion.Allusion:A reference to a familiar literary or historical person or event, used to make an idea more easily understood.Classicism Admiration of the qualities of formal balance, proportion, decorum, and restraint attributed to the major works of ancient Greek and Roman literature. Condemned romantic self-expression as eccentric self-indulgence. Doctrines of Matthew Arnold and more especially of T. S. Eliot are classicistNeoclassicismCodified form of classicism that dominated French literature in the 17th and 18th centuries, with a significant influence on English writing, especially from 1660 to 1780In contrast with Romanticism-- “Age of Reason”It is e merged from rediscovery of Aristotle’s Poetics (4th century BC) by Italian scholars in the 16th century.Etching: a method of making prints from a metal plate, usually copper, into which the design has been incised by acid.Etching: a unity of the corporeal and the spiritualthe contraries: creatively opposite and necessary / complementary to form a united whole Tetrameter Line: eight syllables.Trochaic Foot抑扬格诗句: a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Catalexis: absence of a syllable in the final foot in a line. In Blake’s poem, an unstressed syllable is absent in the last foot of each line. Thus, every line has seven syllables, not the conventional eight.Alliteration头韵: A poetic device where the first consonant sounds or any vowel sounds in words or syllables are repeated.Blank Verse: unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter.Ballad: A short poem that tells a simple story and has a repeated refrain. Ballads were originally intended to be sung. Early ballads, known as folk ballads, were passed down through generations, so their authors are often unknown. Later ballads composed by known authors are called literary balladsRhymed couplet A rhyming couplet written in iambic pentameter (a Verse with five iambic feet).Enlightenment:Age of Reason, late 17th century to late 18th century especially in France and Switzerland.Bacon, Descartes, Newton, Locke, human reason to clear away superstition.Faith in human progress brought about by propagation of rational principlesEdward Burke, Thomas Paine“Negative Capability”the ability to bask in the beautiful without questioning either it or his methods of description.In other words to take beauty simply as it is.Theme(1) the abstract concept explored in a literary work;(2) frequently recurring ideas, such as enjoy-life while-you-can;(3) repetition of a meaningful element in a work, such as references to sight, vision, andblindness in Oedipus Rex. Sometimes the theme is also called the motif.A theme in Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" is the difficulty of correlating the ideal and the real. Metaphysical Poetry It is a complex, highly intellectual verse filled with intricate and far-fetched metaphors.The body of poetry produced by a group of seventeenth-century English writers called the "Metaphysical Poets." The group includes John Donne and Andrew Marvell. TheMetaphysical Poets made use of everyday speech, intellectual analysis, and unique imagery. They aimed to portray the ordinary conflict s and contradictions of life. Their poem s often took the form of an argument, and many of them emphasize physical and religious love as well as the fleeting nature of life. Elaborate conceit s are typical in metaphysical poetry.Metaphysical Poets: a group of 17th century English poets whose work is notable for its ingenious use of intellectual concepts in surprising conceits, strange paradoxes, and far-fetched imagery.Oedipus Complex: A son's amorous obsession with his mother. The phrase is derived from the story of the ancient Theban hero Oedipus, who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother.Tragic Flaw悲剧性缺陷: In a tragedy, the quality within the hero or heroine which leads to his or her downfall. Examples of the tragic flaw include Othello's jealousy and Hamlet's indecisiveness, although most great tragedies defy such simple interpretation.Unities: (Also known as Three Unities.) Strict rules of dramatic structure, formulated by Italian and French critics of the Renaissance and based loosely on the principles of drama discussed by Aristotle in his Poetics. Foremost among these rules were the three unities of action, time, and place that compelled a dramatist to: (1) construct a single plot with a beginning, middle, and end that details the causal relationships of action and character; (2) restrict the action to the events of a single day; and (3) limit the scene to a single place or city. The unities were observed faithfully by continental European writers until the Romantic Age, but they were never regularly observed in English drama. Modern dramatists are typically more concerned with a unity of impression or emotional effect than with any of the classical unities.RomanticismIt, as a literary movement, took place in Britain and then throughout the whole Europe roughly between 1770 and 1848, emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. Omniscience:✹The narrator is capable of knowing, seeing, and telling whatever he wishes in the story. Characterized by freedom in shifting from the exterior world to the innerselves of a number of characters and by a freedom in movement both in time andplace.✹What is irony?✹ A subtly humorous perception of inconsistency, in which an apparently straightforward statement or event is undermined by its context so as to give it a very different significanceessay: short composition that discusses its subject in nontechnical fashion; persuades us to accept a thesis on any subject.。

(完整word版)英国文学_名词解释_【整理后】

1.epic 史诗：a long narrative poem，grand in style，about heroes and heroic deeds, embodyingheroic ideals of a nation or race in the making. Beowulf is the English national epic that was passed from mouth to mouth and written down by many unknown hands.2.Conceit:a kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlinglydifferent things. A conceit usually provides the framework for an entire poem。

An especially unusual and intellectual kind of conceit is the metaphysical conceit，used by certain 17th-century poets, such as John Donne.。

3.Epiphany（顿悟)：a sudden revelation of truth about life inspired by a seeminglytrivial incident4.Metaphysical poetry:玄学诗派the poetry of John Donne and other 17th-centurypoets who wrote in a similar style。

It is characterized by verbal wit and excess, ingenious structure, irregular meter，colloquial language, elaborate imagery，anda drawing together of dissimilar ideas 。

英国文学名词解释

定义1.文艺复兴Renaissance: the activity, spirit, or time of the great revival of art, literature, and learning in Europe beginning in the 14th century and extending to the 17th century, marking the transition from the medieval to the modern world.2.启蒙运动The Age of Enlightenment/Reason: the movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centries, a progressive intellectual movement, reason(rationality), equality&science(the 18th century)3.浪漫主义Romanticism:It emphasize the specialqualitie of each individual’s mind. In it, emotion over reason, spontaneous emotion, a change from the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit, poetry should be free from all rules, imagination, nature, commonplace.4.湖畔诗人The Lake Poets，who lived in the lake district.William Wordsworth; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Robert Southey。

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名词解释1.Epic(史诗)（appeared in the the Anglo-Saxon Period ）It is a narrative of heroic action, often with a principal hero, usually mythical in its content, grand in its style, offering inspiration and ennoblement within a particular culture or national tradition.A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated.Epic is an extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, like Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey. It usually celebrates the feats of one or more legendary or traditional heroes. The action is simple, but full of magnificence.Today, some long narrative works, like novels that reveal an age & its people, are also called epic.E.g. Beowulf （the pagan（异教徒），secular(非宗教的) poetry）Iliad 《伊利亚特》，Odyssey《奥德赛》Paradise Lost 《失乐园》，The Divine Comedy《神曲》2.Romance （传奇）(Anglo-Norman feudal England)•Romance is any 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 (中世纪) tale dealing with the love and adventures of kings, queens, knights, and ladies, and including supernatural happenings.Form:long composition, in verse, in proseContent:description of life and adventures of a noble heroCharacter:a knight, a man of noble birth, skilled in the use of weapons; often described as riding forth to seek adventures, taking part in tournaments(骑士比武), or fighting for his lord in battles; devoted to the church and the king •Romance lacks general resemblance to truth or reality.•It exaggerates the vices of human nature and idealizes the virtues.•It contains perilous (dangerous) adventures more or less remote from ordinary life.•It lays emphasis on supreme devotion to a fair lady.①The Romance Cycles/Groups/DivisionsThree Groups●matters of Britain Adventures of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table （亚瑟王和他的圆桌骑士）●matters of France Emperor Charlemagne and his peers●matters of Rome Alexander the Great and the attacks of TroyLe Morte D’Arthur （亚瑟王之死）②Class Nature (阶级性) of the RomanceLoyalty to king and lord was the theme of the romances, as loyalty was the corner-stone（the most important part基石）of feudal morality.The romances were composed not for the common but for the noble, of the noble, and by the poets patronized （supported 庇护,保护）by the noble.3. Alliteration（押头韵）: a repeated initial(开头的) consonant(协调,一致) to successive(连续的) words.e.g. 1.To his kin the kindest, keenest for praise.2.Sing a song of southern singer4. Understatement（低调陈述）（for ironical humor）not troublesome: very welcomeneed not praise: a right to condemn5. Chronicle《编年史》（a monument of Old English prose）6. Ballads （民谣）（The most important department of English folk literature ）①Definition:A ballad is a narrative poem that tells a story, and is usually meant to be sung or recited in musical form.An important stream of the Medieval folk literature②Features of English Ballads1. The ballads are in various English and Scottish dialects.2. They were created collectively and revised when handed down from mouth to mouth.3. They are mainly the literature of the peasants, and give an outlook of the English common people in feudal society.③Stylistic （风格上）Features of the Ballads1. Composed in couplets （相连并押韵的两行诗,对句）or in quatrains （四行诗）known as the ballad stanza （民谣诗节）, rhyming abab or abcb, with the first and third lines carrying 4 accented syllables （重读音节）and the second and fourth carrying 3.2. Simple, plain language or dialect （方言，土语）of the common people with colloquial （口语的，会话的）, vivid and, sometimes, idiomatic （符合当地语言习惯的）expressions3. Telling a good story with a vivid presentation around the central plot.4. Using a high proportion of dialogue with a romantic or tragic dimension （方面）to achieve dramatic effect.④Subjects of English Ballads1. struggle of young lovers2. conflict between love and wealth3. cruelty of jealousy4. criticism of the civil war5. matters of class struggle7. Heroic couplet （英雄双韵体）（introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer）Definition:the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter; a verse form in epic poetry, with lines of ten syllables and five stresses, in rhyming pairs.英雄诗体/英雄双韵体：用于史诗或叙事诗，每行十个音节，五个音部，每两行押韵。

8. couplet（两行诗，对句）: Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.A heroic couplet is an iambic pentameter couplet. During the Restoration period and the 18th C. it was a popular verse form.9. iambic pentameter: 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.10. Rhyme（韵，押韵）: the repetition (反复) of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem.E .g . river/shiver, song/long11. meter (格律) （属于Prosody ['prɔsədɪ]（韵文学;诗体学；(某语言的)韵律(学)））: A generally regularpattern of stressed and unstressed syllables（音节）in poetry.The meters with two-syllable feet are:Iambic (x /)（抑扬格）: That time of year thou mayst in me beholdTrochaic (/ x)（扬抑格）: Tell me not in mournful numbersSpondaic (/ /)（扬扬格）: Break, break, break/ On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!The meters with three-syllable feet are:anapestic (x x /)（抑抑扬格）: And the sound of a voice that is stilldactylic (/ x x)（强弱格，长短格，扬抑抑格）: This is the forest primeval, the murmuringpines and the hemlock(a trochee replaces the final dactyl)12. Rhythm（节奏，韵律）（属于Prosody ['prɔsədɪ]（韵文学;诗体学；(某语言的)韵律(学)））：refersto the regular recurrence（反复，重现）of the accent（重读）or stress in poem or song.e.g. the rhythm of day and night, the seasonal rhythm of the year, the beat of our hearts, and the rise and fall of sea tides, etc.basic patterns of rhythmsa) Iambic foot (iamb['aiæmb])（抑扬格）:an unstressed syllable followed by an stressed one as in the word “prevent” or “about”It’s time the children went to bed.We’ll learn a poem by Keats.b) Trochaic [trəu'keiik] foot (trochee ['trəuki:])（扬抑格）:a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one as in “football”, “never”, “happy” or “English”William Morris taught him English.Double, double, toil and trouble.Fire burns and cauldron bubble.c) Anapestic foot (anapest [ˈænəpi:st] )（抑抑扬格）: two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one as in “comprehend” or “intervene”I’ve been working in China for forty years.d) Dactylic foot (dactyl)（强弱格，长短格，扬抑抑格）: a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones as in “dangerous”, “cheerfully”, “yesterday” or “merrily”13．Common line lengths:number of feet per line•one foot m onometer [mɔ'nɔmitə] (rare)（单音部）•two feet dimeter ['dimitə] (二步)•three feet trimester ['trimitə](三步)•four feet tetrameter [te'træmitə](四步)•five feet pentameter [pen'tæmitə](五步)•six feet hexameter [hek'sæmitə]•seven feet heptameter [hep'tæmitə] (rare)•eight feet octameter [ɔk'tæmitə] (rare)14．Line patterns:Couplet（相连并押韵的两行诗,对句）: 2 lines rhyming with each other• A heroic couplet is an iambic pentameter couplet.Tercet ['tə:sit]（三行押韵诗句,三拍子）: 3 lines, terza rima (aba, bcb, cdc, ded)Quatrain ['kwɔtrein]（四行诗）: 4 lines, ballad stanza (abcb)Octave ['ɔktɪv, -,teɪv]（八行诗）: 8 lines, ottava rima (abababcc)Spenserian stanza （斯宾塞诗节）: 9 lines (ababbcbcc) （The Faerie Queene（仙后））Sonnet （十四行诗）: 14 lines (Shakespearean: ababcdcdefefgg)Example:She walks in beauty, like the nightof cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that’s best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes:Thus mellow’d to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies1. Foot and length: Iambic tetrameter2. Rhyme (scheme): ababab15．Humanism1) Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. According to humanists, human beings were glorious creatures capable of individual development in the direction of perfection and the world can be questioned, explored and enjoyed.2) By emphasizing the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, in contrast to the medieval emphasis on God and contempt for the things of this world, they voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to pursue happiness of this life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wanders.16. Drama1. Definition•Drama is “a composition in prose or verse, adapted to be acted upon a stage, in which a story is related by means of dialogue and action, and is represented with accompanying gesture, costume, andscenery, as in real life.”2. The Development of Drama1.Religious Period1) Mystery plays presented stories from the Old and New Testament of the Bible.•Creation of the World, the Fall, the Great Flood, Redemption, Final Judgment, etc.•The birth of the Christ—child symbolized hope in the darkness of winter; Christ’s resurrection（复活）accorded with the earth’s renewal in spring, and the promise of harvest atmidsummer.2) Miracle plays（奇迹剧）•Dramatizing（将-改编成剧本）the lives and miracles of saints, or divine intervention (神的干预，介入) in human affairs, that is, stories from the lives of saints.•Often focused on blessed virgin Mary3) Morality plays （道德剧）•Presenting stories containing abstract（抽象的）virtues and vices （美德和恶习）as characters.•They were plays which had a moral message: Good and Evil fight for domination（统治）of the human soul.•Everyman, the best example, is the story of a character representing mankind.2. Artistic PeriodThe first Comedy, Ralph Roister Doister《拉尔夫·罗伊斯特·多伊斯特》written by the schoolmaster, Nicholas Udall between 1550 and 1553The first English tragedy, Gorboduc written in 1561 by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton3. Elements of drama1. Plot (情节)The structure of a play’s action, the order of the incidents, their arrangem ent and form.2. Character(人物): the vital center of a playHow they look, what they say and in what manners they say; what they do and how their actions reveal who they are and what they representThe human qualities are the most engaging feature.3. Dialogue(对白)Drama is described as “persons moving about on stage using words.”Major functions of Dialogue: to advance the plot, to establish setting, and to reveal character.4. Staging(舞台设计)Things like positions of actors, nonverbal gestures and movements, scenic background, props and costumes, lighting and sound effects5. Theme(主题): the central idea of the play.4. Dramatic Terms1. Script(脚本): the written work from which a drama isproduced. It contains stage directions andDialogue2. Stage Directions(舞台指导): notes provided by the playwright to describe how something should bepresented or performed on stage3. Monologue(独白): a long speech given by an actor4. Soliloquy(独白): a speech given by a character who is alone (or thinks he is alone) on stage5. Aside(旁白): a statement intended to be heard by the audience or by a single other character but not by allthe other characters on stage6. Act(幕): a major division of a drama7. Scene(场): a division of an act. A scene typically begins with the entrance of one or more characters andends with the exit of one or more characters.edy(喜剧)（Drama form）A play written chiefly to amuse its audience by appealing to a sense of superiority over the charactersdepicted. A comedy will normally be closer to everyday life than a tragedy, and will explore common human failings rather than tragedy’s disastrous crimes. Its ending will usually be happy for the leading characters.• E.g.（莎士比亚）Romantic Comedies（the overcoming the obstacle of love）: As You Like It(皆大欢喜), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Twelfth Night, & The Merchant of Venice（威尼斯商人）18. Tragedy（Drama form）• A serious play or novel representing the disastrous downfall of a central character, the protagonist. According to Aristotle, the purpose is to achieve a catharsis through incidents arousing pity and terror. The tragic effect usually depends on our awareness of admirable qualities in he protagonist, which are wasted terribly in the fated disaster.• E.g. （莎士比亚）Great Tragedies（四大悲剧）（explores the faults/weaknesses of humans）: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear& Macbeth19. dramatic Romance (tragi-comedy)（悲喜剧）（莎士比亚）（Drama form）:•Romances focus on the separation and reunion of families rather than love and marriage.•Endings were characterized by homecoming, recognition, reconciliation, and forgiveness.•The romances are set in mythical worlds where supernatural and magic and unlikely coincidences arecommonplace.E.g. Pericles《波里克利斯》, Cymbeline《辛柏林》, The Winter’s Tale《冬天的故事》, The Tempest《暴风雨》20. Monologue（长篇独白）•An extended speech uttered by one speaker, either to others or alone. Significant varieties include the dramatic monologue(a kind of poem in which the speaker is imagined to be addressing a silent audience), and the soliloquy(in which the speaker is supposed to be “overheard（偷听，无意中听到）” while alone).21. Soliloquy• A dramatic speech delivered by one character speaking aloud while under the impression of being alone.The soliloquist thus reveals his or her inner thoughts and feelings to the audience, either in supposed self-communion（自我反省）or in a consciously direct address（演说，演讲）. It is also known as interior monologue.内心独白22. The basic plot of the play (Freytag’s pyramid )1. Exposition (阐述，讲解，说明): provides the background information needed to properly understand the story,such as the protagonist, the antagonist, the basic conflict, and the setting.2. Rising action（发展）: during rising action, the basic internal（内部）conflict is complicated（复杂）bythe introduction of related secondary conflicts, including various obstacles that frustrate the protagonist'sattempt to reach his goal.3. Climax（高潮）: the turning point, which marks a change, for the better or the worse, in the protagonist’saffairs. If the story is a comedy, things will have gone badly for the protagonist up to this point;now, the tide, so to speak, will turn, and things will begin to go well for him or her. If the story is atragedy, the opposite state of affairs will ensue, with things going from good to bad for theprotagonist.4. Falling action:during the falling action, or resolution, which is the moment of reversal（反向，倒转，转变，颠倒）after the climax, the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels, with theprotagonist winning or losing against the antagonist. The falling action might contain a moment offinal suspense, during which the final outcome of the conflict is in doubt.5. Dénouement, resolution, or catastrophe: comprises events between the falling action and the actualend of the drama or narrative and thus serves as the conclusion of the story. Conflicts are resolved,creating normality for the characters and a sense of catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety, forthe reader.The comedy ends with a dénouement (a conclusion) in which the protagonist is better off than at the story's outset. The tragedy ends with a catastrophe in which the protagonist is worse off than at the beginning of the narrative.In Shakespeare's tragedies, the dénouement is usually the death of one or more characters.23. Dramatic irony (戏剧性讽刺)Dramatic irony: the words or acts of a character may carry a meaning unperceived by the character but under-stood by the audience.Examples of dramatic irony in Romeo and Juliet•Before Romeo drinks the poison, he observes that Juliet looks as though she were alive.•Romeo is cheerful because of a dream, but his h opes are quickly dashed by Balthasar’s news of Juliet’s death.24. Blank Verse （无韵诗）•Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. It is a very flexible English verse form which can attain rhetorical grandeur（雄伟，壮观）while echoing the natural rhythms of speech. It was first used by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and soon became a popular form for narrative and dramatic poetry. Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Stevens and Robert Frost are fond of this form.25. SonnetA sonnet is a lyric poem comprising 14 rhyming lines of equal length: iambic pentameter in English, hendecasyllables [hen,dekə'siləbl]（十一音节）in Italian, and alexandrines.[ˌæliɡˈzɑ:ndrain]（亚历山大诗行）in French.1. The Italian/Petrarchan（彼得拉克）sonnetIt is named after Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), the Italian poet. The 14 lines break into an octave(or octet) of 2 quatrains, rhymed abbaabba(rhymed sometimes abbacddc or even abababab); and a sestet, usually rhymed cdecde or cdcdcd.2. The English/Shakespearean sonnetIt was introduced into English poetry in the early 16th century by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542). It consists of 3 quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.An important variant is the Spenserian sonnet,which links the 3 quatrains by rhyme, rhyming abab bcbc cdcd ee.（quatrain: 四行诗(每节四行,韵律一般为abab或abba)）26. Allegory（寓言）• A story with a double meaning: a primary or surface meaning, and a secondary or under-the-surface meaning• A story that can be read, understood and interpreted at two levelsTwo levels of allegory•One level examines the moral, philosophical and religious values and is represented by the Red Cross Knight, who stands for all Christians.•The second level is the particular, which focuses on the political, social, and religious conflicts in the then English society.27. Types of poetry1) Narrative poetryepic, romance, and balladThe stress is on action,e.g. to tell stories and describe actions;2) Lyric poetryElegies ['elədʒi:]（挽歌）, odes（颂诗，颂歌）, sonnets, epigraphs ['epiɡrɑ:f]（铭文, 碑文）, etc.To combine speech and song to express feelings in varying degrees of verbal（口头的，言语的）music.28. essay（散文，随笔）As a form of literature, the essay is a composition of moderate length, usually in prose, which deals in an easy way with the external conditions of a subject, and, in strictness, with that subject, only as it affects the writer.1. Purpose:Essays is intended for the ambitious Elizabethan and Jacobean youth of upper class, to tell them how to be efficient and make their way in public life.2.Writing style:four prominent qualities:preciseness, directness,tenseness, forcefulness3. Bacon’s essaysBacon offers his views on a whole smorgasbord of topics ranging from Truth, Death, Adversity, Marriage & the Single Life, Love, Boldness, Superstition, Friendship, Health, Ambition, Youth, Beauty to Anger & Fame.4. Features of Bacon’s essaysBacon’s essays a re the first example of that genre in English literature and have been recognized as an important landmark in the development of English prose. The essays are famous for the pithy aphoristic style, which he had defended in principle in The Advancement of Learning as proper for the expression of tentative opinions.E.g. Essays «培根论文集»“Of Studies”“Of Wisdom”“Of Death”“Of Friendship”“Of Travel”, etc.29. Metaphysical(形而上学，超自然，纯哲学) PoetsMETAPHYSICAL POETS refer to a school of poets at the beginning of the 17th century England who wrote under the influence of John Donne. The works of the Metaphysical poets are characterized, generally speaking, by mysticism in content and fantasticality in form.The most eminent poets are John Donne, George Herbert & Andrew Marwell.30. Metaphysical PoetryMetaphysical poetry is concerned with the whole experience of man, especially about love, romantic and sensual; about man's relationship with God, and about pleasure, learning and art.Metaphysical poems are lyric poems of brief but intense meditations, characterized by the striking use of wit, irony and wordplay. Beneath the formal structure (of rhyme, metre and stanza) is the underlying structure of the poem’s argument. In “To His Coy Mistress,” th e explicit argument (Marvell's request that the coy lady yield to his passion) is a stalking horse for the more serious argument about the transitoriness of pleasure.Rise & Fall of Metaphysical Poetry•Metaphysical poetry was rarely read in the 17th, 18th and early 19th century.•In the late 19th century and early 20th century, there was a renewed interest in metaphysical poetry.•The modernist poets T.S. Eliot, John Ransom and Allen Tate claimed their influence by John Donne. So John Donne became a cult figure in the early 20th century English-speaking countries.31. Conceit （巧妙的词语；别出心裁的比喻）A conceit is a figure of speech which makes an unusual and sometimes elaborately sustained comparison betweentwo dissimilar things.Metaphysical conceitThis type of conceit draws upon a wide range of knowledge, and its comparisons are elaborately（苦心经营地，精巧地）rationalized.For instance, Donne’s “The Flea” compares a flea bite to the act of love; and in “A Va lediction: Forbidding Mourning” separated lovers are likened to the legs of a compass, the leg drawing the circle eventually returning home to "the fixed foot."32. Cavalier[,kævə'lɪə] Poets（保皇党派诗人）Cavalier poets are, more often than not, knights and squires, who side with the king against the parliament and the puritans in the English revolution. They mostly deal in short songs on the flitting joys of the day, but underneath their lightheartedness lies some foreboding of impending doom.• 1. Writing on the courtly themes of loyalty, love, and beauty, the cavalier poets produced finely finished verses.• 2. The common factor that binds the cavaliers together is their use of direct and colloquial language expressive of a highly individual personality, and their enjoyment of the casual, the amateur（外行的，业余的）, the affectionate（充满深情的）poem written by the way.• 3. They are “cavalier” in the sense, not only of being Royalists, but in the sense that they distrust the over-earnest, the too intense.• 4. The leading cavalier poets were Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, and Thomas Carew.Most were admirers of Ben Jonson.33. neoclassicism（新古典主义）–It found its artistic models in the classical literature of the ancient Greek and Roman writers like Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid.– A partial reaction against the fires of passion blazed in the late Renaissance, especially in the Metaphysical poetry.--- Prose should be precise, direct, smooth andflexible.--- Poetry should be lyrical（抒情的）, epical（叙事的）, didactic（教导的）, satiric or dramatic, and each class should be guided by its own principles.--- Neo-classical writers are: John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edward Gibbon, etc.34. Bourgeoisie[,bʊəʒwɑ:'zi:]（中产阶级）(the 18th Century Age of Bourgeoisie35. Enlightenment Movement(启蒙运动)Under the influence of scientific discoveries (Newton) and flourishing of philosophies, French enlightenment started.Enlightenment thinkers such as V oltaire伏尔泰, Montesquieu孟德斯鸠, Locke洛克, Hobbes霍布斯, and Rousseau卢梭believed that the world was an object of study and that people could understand and control the world by means of reason and empirical（以观察或实验为依据的）research.•an intellectual movement beginning in France and then spread throughout Europe• a continuation of Renaissance in belief in the possibility of human perfection through education•the guiding principle or slogan（标语，标号）is Ration（定量？）/Reason, natural right and equality (American Independence War in 1776; French Revolution in 1789)•Ration became standard for measurement of everything.•In religion, it was against superstition（迷信）, intolerance（心胸狭窄）, and dogmatism（教条主义，独断，武断）; in politics, it was against tyranny（暴政，苛政）; and in society, it was against prejudice, ignorance, inequality, and any obstacles to the realization of an individual’s full intellectual and physical well-being. At the same time, they advocated（提倡）universal education. In their opinion, human beings were limited, dualistic （二元的）, imperfect, and yet capable of rationality（合理性，合理的行为见解）and perfection through education.The great enlighteners:•Alexander Pope,•Joseph Addison,•Jonathan Swift, and•Samuel Johnson36. Prose1) Biography（传记）: James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson2) Journalism/Periodicals（期刊）: Steels and Addison’s literary journals3) Realist novel（现实主义小说）: bourgeois in essence--- subject matter,--- readership,--- didactic purpose,--- form (prose, comic epic);37. Gothic novel (from mid-18th century)--- Devoted to tales of horror and the darkersupernatural forces--- Derives its name from similarities toMedieval(中古的,中世纪) Gothic architecture--- Gothic Horror: A thriller designed not only toterrify or frighten the audience, but to convey asense of moral failure or spiritual darkness.--- The Gothic in England begins with The Castle of Otranto in 1760, by Horace Walpole, which emphasized the supernatural mixed with the grotesque in a medieval setting.--- Anne Radcliffe in Mysteries of Udolpho perfected the sentimental gothic in the 1790s.--- Frankenstein(1817) by Mary Shelley---influenced the later generations: Coleridge, Keats, Dickens, Bronte sisters, etc.38. Sentimentality literature伤感文学--- It was a partial reaction against that cold, logic rationalism which dominated people’s life since the last decades of the 17th century.--- A ready sympathy and an inward pain for the misery of others became part of accepted social morality and ethics.--- started by Samuel Richardson’s Pamelaand Clarissa--- represented in novel form by Laurence Sterne’s ASentimental Journey through France andItaly (1768)--- represented in poetry by “The Graveyard School”:Thomas Gray, Edward Young--- emphasizing the emotion/heart instead of ration---gradually merged into Romanticism39. Satire: A literary manner which blends humor with criticism for the purpose of instruction or the improvement ofhumanity.The necessary ingredients--- Humor--- Criticism, either general criticism of humanity or humannature or specific criticism of an individual or group.--- Some kind of moral voice: simply mocking or criticismis not “satire.”The best and most representative works are found in those written by Pope and Swift.Alexander Pope•Mock epic: “The Rape of the Lock”•Literary Satire: “The Dunciad”•Jonathan Swift•“A Modest Proposal”•Gulliver’s Travels40. The Realistic NovelThe English middle-class people were ready to cast away the aristocratic romance and to create a new and realistic literature of their own to express their ideas and serve their interests.The whole life in its ordinary aspects of the middle class became the major source of interest in literature.Major novelists: Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith, Tobias George Smollett…41. Elements of Fiction1. Theme: the central idea or statement about life that unifies and controls the total workIdentifying the theme•To avoid confusing a work’s theme with its subject or situation.•The statement of theme does the work full justice.•It is fully and completely supported by the work’s other elements.•The title of the work often su ggests a particular focus or emphasis for the reader’s attention.2. Plot :The action in fiction, the arrangement of events that make up a story.•Plots turn on a conflict, or struggle between opposing forces, i.e. how one action leads into another.•Structure is the design or form of the action, i.e. patterns and the shape of content.•The classic pattern: exposition, complication, crisis, falling action, and resolution3. Character：Characters are imaginary people that writers create.•Concerned with being able to establish the personalities of the characters and to identify their intellectual, emotional, and moral qualities.•Concerned with the techniques to create and develop characters.•Concerned with whether the characters are credible and convincing.The major, or central, character of the plot is the protagonist (主角).The opponent, the character against whom the protagonist struggles or contends, is the antagonist (反角).Flat characters are those who embody or represent a single characteristic, trait, or idea, or at most avery limited number of such qualities. (type characters, one-dimensional characters) Round characters are just the opposite. They embody a number of qualities and traits, and arecomplex multi-dimensional characters of considerable intellectual and emotional depth.Most importantly, they have the capacity to grow and change.4. SettingSetting is both the physical locale that frames the action andthe time of day or year, the climatic conditions, and thehistorical period during which the action takes place.。